CAPS or international? How to choose an online curriculum without guessing

Parents usually ask which of our programmes is best. It is the wrong question, and asking it the other way round makes the decision almost easy.

Do not start from the curriculum. Start from where the student needs to be standing in three years, and work backwards.

Here is that map.

The three destinations

Everything we run leads somewhere different, and the differences are not subtle.

• **CambriLearn CAPS** is the South African curriculum, Grade 1 to 12, in English and Afrikaans. It ends in a National Senior Certificate written through SACAI — the same matric written in schools, with nothing to explain to anybody afterwards.
• **My Online School** is an international programme, Grade 6 to 10, built on Study.com. It ends in no certificate at all, because it is a school programme rather than a school-leaving qualification. Students carry on to the GED afterwards.
• **The GED** is an American school-leaving qualification, from age 16, four exams, NQF Level 4. It is the fastest route to a qualification and it comes with one significant limitation you must read about first.

Start here: does the student need a bachelor's degree at a public South African university?

This single question settles most cases.

If yes — and particularly if the degree is medicine, engineering, actuarial science or anything else with hard subject prerequisites — choose CAPS. A National Senior Certificate with the right subjects is the straightest possible road, and every other route adds a step. The GED, on its own, does not carry matric exemption in South Africa. There are four working routes past that and they are genuinely usable, but they all cost either a bridging year or a narrower choice of institution. If a public university degree is the actual goal, do not buy that detour if you do not have to.

If no, or not yet — the student is heading for work, a trade, a technical or private college, a learnership, a Higher Certificate, or is honestly not sure — then the GED is very often the better instrument. It is four exams instead of seven subjects, it can be finished inside a year, and it can be started in any month rather than waiting for January.

If the student is under 16, the GED is not available yet, and that changes the shape of the question entirely. See the next section.

If the student is under 16

You have two choices, and they turn on one thing: how likely is a return to a mainstream school?

Choose CAPS if a return is realistically possible. Same curriculum, same grades, same subject names. A student can slot back into their grade at a mainstream school without a translation problem. It is also the right choice if there is any chance the family will move towards a public-university degree later — you are keeping the widest door open, and that is worth something even if you never use it.

Choose My Online School if a return is not on the cards. It is an international curriculum, so a student would not slot back neatly. What you gain in exchange is real: a student can sit at the level where their understanding actually is, subject by subject, rather than at the level on their birth certificate. For a child who has spent two years quietly drowning, that is often the whole repair.

The catch to hold in your head is that My Online School stops at Grade 10 and issues nothing. That is not a hidden flaw, it is what the programme is — but it means you need to settle the finishing route before you start, not in the year you need it. Most of our families go straight on to the GED at sixteen, with the tutor who already knows the student.

The things that are the same either way

It is worth saying what does not vary, because it is most of what actually determines whether a student succeeds.

• Every programme runs on video lessons that can be watched as many times as needed. All three.
• Quizzes and tests follow the lessons, so understanding is checked rather than assumed.
• Where a concept will not land, a person sits with the student one-on-one and then sets extra tests on that specific thing. This is the part that is actually us, and it is identical across all three.
• Assessment is external. SACAI, CambriLearn markers, or GED testing centres. What a student earns is never a Nova opinion of their ability.
• Enrolment is open all year, and lessons can be done at the centre in Lydenburg or over Zoom from anywhere.
• Self-paced, which cuts both ways. A motivated student can move fast. An unsupervised one can lose a term, which is exactly why the tutoring exists.

On cost

The three programmes are not priced the same, and the per-year figure is a misleading way to compare them: the GED costs more per year than CAPS but is usually finished inside one year, while CAPS may have several years left to run. Work out the total to the finish line, not the annual figure.

Current fees for all three are on the fees page, and we would rather you compared them there than trusted a number in a blog post that might be a year old. As a CambriLearn affiliate we pass on a 50% discount to every student from Grade 1 to Grade 9, which shifts the arithmetic considerably for younger children.

If you are still not sure

That is normal, and it is not a decision you should make from a website — ours included.

Tell us three things: the age, the last grade completed, and what has been getting in the way. That is usually enough for us to say which programme we would put your student on and why, and we will tell you if the honest answer is that they should stay where they are.

Get in touch. It costs nothing to ask.