St Andrew'S College (Grahamstown)

Broe, St Andrew's College in Grahamstown. GRAHAMSTOWN. Not Cape Town, not Joburg, not even East London. Grahamstown. Your parents are paying R183,000 a year to send you to a town that the rest of South Africa only remembers exists during the Arts Festival. You are boarding there. You cannot even go home on weekends to cry about it. You are STUCK in the Eastern Cape with 205 other boys and the Anglican church breathing down your neck about your soul while your parents sell a kidney to cover next term's fees. Speaking of those boys, there are 70 educators for 206 learners. That is a 2.9 to 1 ratio. Practically one teacher per child. You have less excuse for failing than anyone alive. If you come out of St Andrew's with a bad matric, your teacher was literally standing next to you the entire time watching it happen. The school cannot even blame overcrowding. They were RIGHT THERE. And the Anglican ethos is working overtime to justify R154,000 for Grade 7. Grade 7, my friend. You are eleven years old and your school fees cost more than most people's annual salary. Jesus may well have said suffer the little children, but He probably did not mean financially. At least the boarding means you get to live at school and really feel every rand of that invoice in your soul, every single day. Overall verdict: St Andrew's is basically a five-star guilt trip with a rugby field, but those boys come out sharp as a blazer crease.