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Private teacher-training education institute, Embury Institute for Higher Education, is eyeing its fourth campus with the recent acquisition of a piece of land in the Western Cape by its listed mother company, Stadio.
Stadio announced that it is planning to develop the site as a higher education site with multiple Stadio brands being present on the site.
As a teacher education institution, Embury will then establish a presence in the Western Cape aiming to produce more teachers and by implication profits.
Embury has expanded its Montana and Midrand campuses in Gauteng and relocated its Durban campus from Morningside to Musgrave.
The fourth campus, which the company said should be in the next few years, would see Embury being a powerhouse in its subsectoral market.
In an interview with City Press, Embury CEO Johan Human said the company, which has a capacity of 6 000 students but right now had 1 300 studentS enrolled, had plans to produce as many quality teachers as possible and hopefully reach its capacity within the next few years.
Having only recently completed the move from Morningside premises to the much bigger Musgrave campus in Durban, Human said the move was in line with the expansion ambitions of Stadio subsidiary.
“We are very happy with the enrolment,” he said, adding that the Durban campus is now the biggest of the three campuses.
Human, who is also a co-founder of the institution together with two other partners who left when Stadio bought the company in 2013, said what gave Embury an edge over its public tertiary counterparts was the fact that its graduates spent almost 50% of their study time during their first three years teaching at schools.
He said the work-integrated learning approach involved students spending every second week at schools practising what they have been taught on campus.
“Our graduates are classroom ready because they spend a lot of time in school instead of a few weeks each year,” Human said.
He further pointed out that the company’s teaching practice model has also seen its graduates having a 93% employment rate, according to the company’s own recent study.
He added that the school also exposes the students to schools across various levels of societies.
“We don’t take our students for practicals to the same schools. Our only requirement is that the school must be functional.”
Another factor which Human said contributed to the success of the model was the institute’s teacher to student ratio.
“Our ratio is somewhere between 25 to 30 students per teacher,” he said, adding that the fact that Embury offered a wholly teacher-training environment instead of diverse multidisciplinary academic programmes was also a factor that gave the company an edge.
The institute last year announced that it was setting aside R3.5 million for bursaries.
Human said at least six of the 12 recipients of the premium R250 000 bursaries were already identified while some of the smaller packages are already disposed of.
On transformation, Human said at least half the executive staff at Embury were black, 35% of senior staff were black, while 55% of the academic and administration staff were black.
The company is wholly owned by Stadio, which has only one black African face on its entire board and management structure, who is a non-executive director.
The company is set to be one of the beneficiaries of Stadio’s expansion plans in the Western Cape where the recently-acquired piece of land is earmarked for new group developments.
It also announced the appointment of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s brother, Douglas, into its board.
“Ramaphosa offers a wealth of experience, having served on a number of company boards as well as holding various senior executive positions.
"His addition to the board will no doubt be a great asset to Curro,” said Chief Executive of Curro Holdings Andries Greyling of the appointment.
