Oasis Preparatory School in Howick has been forced to shut its doors after 15 years due to unpaid school fees.
The private school said it had been difficult to continue delivering its services due to a growing amount of unpaid school fees over the years.
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In a statement, the school said halfway through this year, the value of unpaid school fees reached an untenable amount with various processes having been followed by the school and its lawyers to recover monies owed.
“For this reason, the Governing Body of Oasis Preparatory School in consultation with the Federation of Associations of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) took the extremely difficult decision to close the school at the end of the 2023 academic year purely because the school is not financially viable with such a large bad debt figure,” read the statement.
They added that the department of education has been informed.
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A chartered accountant that has been helping the school, John Ade, said the school has written off R817 969 in debt over the last six years.
Ade said they were estimating R227 186 for the current year to date in bad debt or slow payers.
The school said their pupils have been granted two terms notice period to allow their pupils the opportunity to transition to new schools at the start of the new academic year, as well as to give their staff sufficient time to find other placements.