R300 000 doesn’t quite buy what it used to, but it will buy you a single year at Hilton College, South Africa’s most expensive school.

This year, the school has raised the fees from 2018’s R276 560 to R298 600 per annum, an increase of R22 040. Sure, that’s a tick under the R300 000 we mentioned earlier, but you still have to buy your textbooks and your first tweed jacket.

If you’re forking out that kind of cash, you’re going to want the best for your kids, so let’s check in with Business Insider for the deets:

Hilton College – South Africa’s most expensive school – offers each pupil a personal tutor and individual academic plan, 16 subjects and 16 sports all on a 1,700-hectare estate in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands…

The school has several cricket, rugby and hockey fields, tennis and squash courts, a shooting range, as well as a gymnasium and an Olympic-size water polo pool. Its roughly 500 pupils are housed in seven houses on the school grounds.

“Within the houses are well-appointed common rooms, prep and study areas, and recently upgraded ablutions which include private shower compartments,” the school’s website reads.

Each house has a housemaster, which are “senior appointments, and their lightened teaching loads enable them to pay careful attention to their charges”. House managers are responsible for the day-to-day running of the houses.

“As women, [the house managers] are also able to bring a motherly touch to the way things happen in the house.”

At Hilton, every pupil is assigned a tutor, a member of the school’s academic staff, whom he has to meet weekly. The tutor is assigned to make sure that pupils are fully involved in the school’s activities.

Not too shabby.

In case you’re wondering, Michaelhouse is the second most expensive school in the country, with 2019 costing learners a cool R284 000. Bear in mind that you might have to put up with a touch of armed robbery, though.

Have we mentioned Hilton’s nature reserve yet? Yup:

The Hilton College Nature Reserve is housed on the school’s grounds and Hilton believes that the estate acts as an outdoor classroom where fewer, longer lessons allow for greater engagement, promoting deeper learning.

Pupils are encouraged to spend time on the estate, fixing pathways, counting animals and compiling checklists of birds of prey.

Routes in the reserve vary from half-hour strolls to hikes that can take a couple of days.

Apparently, it’s also perfect for growing your own outdoor herbs.

Actually, scratch that, because the headmaster wrote a letter to parents back in March 2017, outlining why drugs don’t align with the school’s brand:

We believe it is important to be proactive and engaged on this matter as it is a significant temptation for many young adults. At a school assembly, I highlighted the matter of being associated with and being a part of this great school and suggested that the Hilton brand be understood to be ethical and beyond reproach.

The Hilton brand is the sum of all its parts, in particular the boys, hence I emphasised that we all need to be ethical and beyond reproach.

When you’re charging R300 000 a year, I guess that brand is pretty lucrative.

Big spenders could also send their kids to African Leadership Academy (ALA), located just outside of Jozi, which offers a two-year pre-university programme for 16 to 19-year-olds and charges a whopping $30 900 (around R430 000) a year, although it doesn’t offer a National Senior Certificate or IEB equivalent.

Then again, when you look at the country’s 10 best performing schools with regards to the latest Matric results, maybe you don’t need to spend such vast sums of money.

[source:businsider]