{"id":565851,"date":"2026-07-29T21:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/565851\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T21:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:32:10","slug":"oprah-to-close-south-african-school-after-nearly-2-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/565851\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah to Close South African School After Nearly 2 Decades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                          Oprah<br \/>\n                          Closing Girls&#8217; School in South Africa&#8230;<br \/>\n                          But Plans to Continue Funding Education<\/p>\n<p>\n                                                                        Published<br \/>\n                              July 29, 2026<br \/>\n                            1:25 PM PDT\n                                                                            <\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260729_f331055560b14d31af4f653abd5470a5\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:2c2aa3df-3162-489f-aaf9-b7cabd38436b\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f331055560b14d31af4f653abd5470a5_md.jpg\" alt=\"oprah school getty\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/people\/oprah-winfrey\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oprah Winfrey<\/a>&#8216;s girls&#8217; school in South Africa she opened nearly two decades ago will be closing in 2027 &#8230; and transitioning its operations to local officials, she announced.<\/p>\n<p>Moving forward, the media mogul will instead focus on a scholarship program for girls at the boarding school &#8212; currently called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy of Girls &#8212; she said in a statement Wednesday. The plan is to expand reach to more young girls across South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260729_a05ce6bead45422a893f3d3c0e19fa58\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:2c2aa3df-3162-489f-aaf9-b7cabd38436b\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a05ce6bead45422a893f3d3c0e19fa58_md.jpg\" alt=\"sub-oprah-winfrey-Courtesy-HARPO-1\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>The school will end its current operations at the end of 2027, according ot the announcement &#8230; and South Africa\u2019s Gauteng Department of Education will take over.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"continued\" class=\"continued-anchor\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Oprah&#8217;s reps tell TMZ that girls who are unable to finish their schooling at the Academy &#8220;will go to other top-tier schools with their tuition paid for in total by Ms. Winfrey through their graduation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oprah opened the school in 2007 and more than 1,000 girls have graduated since.<\/p>\n<p>Oprah said in a statemet, &#8220;The dream was never simply to build a school. It was to invest in the limitless potential of young women. That mission doesn\u2019t end with one campus. It continues in every girl whose future can be transformed through education.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oprah Closing Girls&#8217; School in South Africa&#8230; But Plans to Continue Funding Education Published July 29, 2026 1:25&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-565851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}