The title of South Africa’s oldest school is always going to be a contentious one, but if you ask Google you’ll usually find SACS popping up first.

Their website says they are the oldest high school in South Africa, although Wynberg Boys’ High might tell you that they’re actually older, but that ‘cottage neath the mountain’ wasn’t officially recognised as a school for a good few years, meaning SACS pipped them to the post.

As suggested in the headline, and as is clear by the discussion online around the Parent24 story, the title of oldest school in South Africa is a contentious one.

They claim that “This list with 200 of South Africa’s oldest schools may surprise you”, and that’s just what it did when I read it.

Before we go to the list, here’s the methodology:

[They’ve] enlisted the guidance of Ms Sigi Howes, the principal and primary researcher for the Centre for Conservation Education in Wynberg, Cape Town, who has been studying official government reports and documentation for the past 10 years.

Her findings reveal some fascinating details about the history of schools in SA, albeit with a focus on certain parts of the country.

The Centre for Conservation Education is unique to the Western Cape but Sigi has also delved into the history of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Free State, and Northern Cape.

Because of this, she cautions “not to speak in terms of absolutes” and to bear in mind “the shifting nature of ongoing research.”

“New information often comes to light that changes the picture… and every time I find such information, the ‘list’ of oldest schools may change,” she told Parent24…

“Some schools welcome the new research; most are reluctant to accept new information that forces them to rethink their school’s history and they prefer to stay with the status quo.”

Hmm, I wonder which schools would be reluctant to accept information that knocked them off their perch?

Now don’t shoot the messenger, because I’m just showing you the list as they published it. Drum roll:

Well, well, well.

Since they first published the list, many readers reached out to Parent24, leading to this follow up article.

It came with this disclaimer:

Since publishing an extensive list of some of South Africa’s oldest schools – we’ve received a flood of readers’ responses, from our social networks to our feedback email inbox.

Most of these were from readers sending schools to add to the list (which we’ve done below the original research), and others utterly confused by the “year established” info for their specific schools. This is because we published only the oldest dates discovered and provided to the Parent24 team by Ms Sigi Howes, principal and primary researcher for the Centre for Conservation Education in Wynberg, Cape Town.

Her original data include a list of previous names for each school (up to 5 for some schools) – many old schools changed ownership from church to state, moved premises and/or were renamed for various reasons throughout the years. All this information could not be included in Parent24’s table due to a lack of space – we’re talking 10 years of research here!

So this might explain why some schools, who today are celebrating their 150th year, is actually much older than that.

Again, we’re just publishing the table featured, so try not to let this information touch you on your studio and ruin your weekend.

I’m sure you will still meet up with the boytjies, crack a few cold ones, and reminisce about the good old days just fine.

[source:parent24]