What online school actually costs, with our numbers on the table

Ask most online schools what they charge and you get a form to fill in. We would rather print the numbers, because a family working out whether this is even possible should not have to give a stranger their phone number to find out.

So here is the whole picture — ours, and the parts that are not ours.

What we charge

Every fee is set out on its own — what is paid once, what is paid yearly, what is paid monthly, and what is paid only when a student is ready to write an exam. A single "from" figure hides exactly the parts a family has to plan for, so we do not use one.

• [CambriLearn CAPS](/programmes/cambrilearn) — R1 000 registration, once-off, then R2 000 a month for tuition and administration, twelve months of the year. Grade R to 12, in English or Afrikaans. Nova Support Center is a CambriLearn affiliate, so learners from Grade R to Grade 9 get 50% off the tuition and administration fee — R1 000 a month instead of R2 000. Registration stays at R1 000.
• [My Online School](/programmes/my-online-school) — R1 000 registration, once-off; a R4 800 annual subscription, paid yearly; and R1 800 a month tuition. The subscription is a separate yearly fee on top of the monthly tuition, not part of it. Grade 6 to 10.
• [The GED](/programmes/ged) — R1 000 registration, once-off; a R3 300 GED programme subscription; and R1 850 a month tuition. On top of that come four pretests at R150 each and four exams at R1 600 each, each paid when the learner is ready to write it.

The monthly tuition is for full tutoring support — a real person teaching the work, tracking the progress and answering to you — not a login and a set of videos.

The fees page carries the same numbers plus the payment terms in full.

What is not included

Four things, and any provider that does not volunteer them is leaving you to find out later.

SACAI examination fees, in the matric year

On the CAPS route the final examinations are written through SACAI, and those examination fees fall in the final year. They are extra, and we pass them on to you at cost. Ask us for the current figure when you get near.

The GED works differently: its pretests and exams are itemised in the fees above and paid one at a time, as the learner becomes ready for each, rather than in one lump in a final year.

A laptop

Students need their own laptop to work on. It does not have to be new or clever; it has to run video and a browser reliably. This catches families out, so plan for it before January rather than in it.

Internet at home

We provide the internet connection for full-time students at the centre. If your child is working from home over Zoom, the connection at home is yours to arrange. Budget for enough data to stream video most days.

Where the connection is genuinely poor, say so upfront. A good deal of the work can be done offline between live sessions, and we would rather plan the week around a real constraint than watch a family fail against one nobody mentioned.

The SAQA evaluation, if it applies

If you finish on the GED, many colleges and employers will want a SAQA Certificate of Evaluation before they accept it, because it is a foreign qualification. We run that as a standalone service from R500 — you do not have to be a Nova student to use it, and we will tell you if you do not need it at all. There is a whole page on it: SAQA evaluation help.

The terms, plainly

We would rather you read these now than be surprised by one of them in April.

• Monthly fees are payable in advance. January's fee is payable on 1 January.
• Fees run twelve months of the year, not ten. School holidays do not pause them.
• Attendance does not change the fee. A student who does not attend remains liable for the month.
• Cancelling takes a full calendar month of notice.
• Payments are not refunded.
• Exams are booked once outstanding fees are settled, unless other arrangements are made beforehand.

None of that is unusual for a school. All of it is easier to accept when it is on a page you read before enrolling.

The comparison nobody does properly

Families almost always compare our monthly fee against a school's monthly fee, and stop there. That is not the real comparison.

Add to the school side: transport or fuel, uniforms, textbooks and stationery, sports kit, outings, fundraising, aftercare, and — for families outside town — the driving. A two-hour round trip is a tank of fuel a week and roughly a term of a child's life every year.

Add to the online side: the laptop, the internet, and someone at home who notices when three days have gone past.

We are not going to tell you the sum always comes out in our favour. For a family living five minutes from a school that is doing well by their child, it does not, and we will say so on the phone. What we will say is that the honest comparison is closer than the two headline numbers make it look.

What you get for it

It is fair to ask. On every programme:

1. 1Video lessons that can be replayed as many times as needed, at whatever hour the student actually concentrates.
2. 2Quizzes and tests after the lessons, so that understanding is verified rather than assumed.
3. 3One-on-one help when a concept will not land — the part a screen cannot do. Our staff work through it individually, then set extra tests on that specific thing.
4. 4External examination, through SACAI, GED testing centres or CambriLearn. What a student earns here is not our opinion of them.
5. 5Enrolment open all year, on all three programmes. You are not waiting for January.

Ask us for a real number

The figures above start with "from" because the right number depends on the grade, the subjects and how much support a student actually needs.

Tell us the age, the last grade completed and what has been getting in the way, and we will give you the actual monthly figure for your situation rather than a range — along with which programme we would put them on and why.

Call or WhatsApp us. No form, no waiting.