Michaelhouse (Howick)

Balgowan. BALGOWAN. Not Joburg, not Cape Town, not even Pietermaritzburg where at least there's a Spur. They put this school in the actual middle of nowhere in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, surrounded by mist and cows, and then charged parents R400,320 a YEAR to send their sons there. That is not school fees, that is a mortgage. That is a deposit on a house in Brackenfell AND a second-hand Polo. And the boys are locked in, boarding, in Balgowan, with 619 other boys and no girls. Anglican. Just vibes and hymns and fog. But the school's own description is what really sent me. They looked into the camera and said, straight-faced, "we are not making accountants, not clerks, not clergymen, but MEN." Brother. You are making men at R400k a pop in a field outside Howick. You have 78 teachers for 620 boys, which is genuinely impressive, nearly one teacher per eight kids, so those men are getting VERY personally developed. The ratio alone costs more than most people's entire schooling career combined. One hundred and twenty-nine years of Holism and Anglican fog and not-making-clergymen, and the website sounds like it was written by someone who has definitely never stood in a queue at a taxi rank in his life. These boys finish matric, arrive in the real world, and the real world is like, "eish, skat, welcome." Overall verdict: Michaelhouse will turn your son into a Man of Culture who cannot afford his own school fees.