Oprah Winfrey Explains Why Her South Africa Academy Is Changing
Oprah Winfrey Explains Why Her South Africa Academy Is Changing
Evolve EditorsWed, July 29, 2026 at 6:01 PM UTC
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Photo Credit: Michelly Rall/Getty Images
Oprah Winfrey is reshaping her nearly two-decade mission in South Africa. After almost 20 years, the media icon is charting a bold new course for one of her proudest endeavors. What began as a single campus is about to grow into something far larger. She says the heart of the mission stays exactly the same.
Oprah Winfrey announces major education change
Oprah Winfrey revealed this week that the school she founded in South Africa nearly two decades ago will wind down. It hands its operations back to local officials, while she pours energy into expanded scholarship efforts for girls.
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls will end operations in its current form at the close of 2027, with the provincial government taking over the facility from there. “The dream was never simply to build a school. It was to invest in the limitless potential of young women,” Winfrey, 72, said in a statement.
She stressed that her purpose “doesn’t end with one campus. It continues in every girl whose future can be transformed through education.”
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The academy will graduate two more classes before the shift. A rep says remaining students will move to other top-tier schools with tuition fully covered through graduation.
The push into Oprah Winfrey scholarship is designed to widen access, with her rep noting the new model will roughly double the number of girls served.
Since it opened in 2007, the South Africa Girls Academy has graduated more than 1,000 students, most of whom went on to higher education. Winfrey personally invested hundreds of millions in the campus. Her focus on Oprah Winfrey education has long been a signature cause. “This school is my greatest legacy,” she told PEOPLE in 2019.
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The post Oprah Winfrey Explains Why Her South Africa Academy Is Changing appeared first on Mandatory.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
