South Africa

New R3.2 billion private Afrikaans ‘university’ campus begins to rise

Shaun Jacobs • 21 April 2026

Akademia’s new campus in Pretoria East is beginning to take shape, with significant progress on the construction of the university’s residences.

This is part of Phase 1 of the campus construction, which is set to welcome its first students in January 2028 after nearly a decade of planning.

The construction of the campus is one of the largest private investment projects in South Africa, with it able to accommodate over 6,000 students.

Kanton, the company building the campus, has said that it is the largest project in the history of the Afrikaans language community.

The campus is being built to consolidate some of Akademia’s offerings and expand further, with it only launching its first full-time campus model in 2021.

Akademia currently has two campuses, four residences, two day houses, and an administrative office in Centurion.

Kanton has shared a progress update on construction at the campus, located eight kilometres from Solomon Mahlangu Drive on Boschkop Road.

The update shows the heart of the academic campus taking shape, with the student centre and amphitheatre progressing well.

Construction of the campus irrigation dam has also begun in earnest, with Akademia aiming to be as self-reliant as possible.

Further down the line, the campus will be equipped with a chapel, sports facilities, an experimental farm, and multiple laboratories.

The campus is one of the largest construction projects in South Africa, with it taking 23 kilometres of underground pipes and 19 million litres of water storage to be as independent as possible from state energy and water distribution.

Kanton estimates that construction will take 7.1 million bricks and 110,000 m² of plaster. Around 40 kilometres of optical fibre cabling will be laid around the site.

Much of these bulk works have been completed, with the focus now being on building up the structures that will make up the university campus.

University coming to life

While much publicity around the university has emerged in recent years, the planning for such a campus has taken close to a decade.

Kanton’s Henk Schalekamp explained in a recent interview that Akademia knew it needed a larger campus around 2018.

The land for the university was identified in 2019, when Akademia only had 700 students enrolled. However, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic would see the purchase of the land delayed.

“This was before the pandemic and before we had a residential offering. But we knew this was going to happen at some point. So, we pulled Akademia and said that we are going in this direction, and you must come along,” Schalekamp said.

The land was purchased in March 2024 after five years of fulfilling various conditions, convincing Akademia, and discussing how the project would be funded.

Much of this happened behind closed doors, with the project only being made public towards the end of 2024.

“Phase one of the project will amount to approximately R1.8 billion and will be completed on 1 January 2028, while the total development cost will be more than R3 billion,” Schalekamp said at the time.

Building such a project requires significant financial resources, with Kanton funding the construction of bulk earthworks through its own balance sheet.

This was done as the financing and capital raised, partly through Solidarity donations, were mobilised to fund the full phase one construction.

“By the end of 2025, we had completed the bulk earthworks and had the sod-turning event. There we began to assemble contractors and gave the site over to the main contractor on 12 January,” Schalekamp said.

“They have taken over the site. It is a completely different place now with new management.”

Schalekamp explained that the company completed the bulk earthworks for Phase 1 and Phase 2 simultaneously to make it more efficient.

“We have done the earthworks for phases one and two together, because we found material that we needed for phase one in the areas where we would build phase two,” Schalekamp explained.

“So, we decided to do this to avoid having to import material onto the site, but this now required us to move 360,000 cubic metres of soil and material. This equates to a freight train carrying 10,000 wagons that is 140 km long.”

Schalekamp explained that this creates the platform for the construction of infrastructure and buildings. In effect, it is the preparation of the site for ‘real construction’.

The real construction is now taking place, with cranes and concrete pylons rising to support the campus’s main structures.