School Type: Co-Educational

There is very little at the Tiger Kloof siding, between Vryburg and Kimberley, to indicate why the train should stop there. No platform, no shelter; only a rusty sign bearing the original Afrikaans name, ‘Tierkloof’. To the west, the veld stretches out flatly to a dusty horizon. But in the opposite direction, beyond a row of stately blue gum trees, stands a collection of splendid stone buildings.

Tiger Kloof owes its existence to the London Missionary Society (LMS). The LMS purchased the Tiger Kloof farm, ten kilometres south of Vryburg, with the intention of building a school next to the railway line. The school’s first headmaster, W C Willoughby, arrived at Tiger Kloof in March 1904.

By 1945 Tiger Kloof comprised no less than nine schools: a high school; a teachers’ training college; a Bible school for the training of ministers; and industrial schools for domestic science, masonry, carpentry, leatherwork and tailoring. It was producing qualified graduates and skilled tradesmen — ’presidents and carpenters’ - in great abundance; by the 1950’s its alumni body had grown to more than three thousand individuals.

In the great catalogue of apartheid crimes, the indiscriminate closure of mission schools in South Africa, under Bantu Education, ranks high. The Bantu Education Act itself did not state directly that mission schools had to close down. But it introduced a number of conditions which made it extremely difficult for the schools to remain open and independent.

Thus it was that Lovedale College and Healdtown in the eastern Cape, Adams College and St Hilda’s in Natal, St Peter’s and Grace Dieu in the Transvaal, and Tiger Kloof in the northern Cape shut their doors within a decade of the passage of the Act. Tiger Kloof was leased to the government in 1955 and continued as a government-run school, a mere shadow of its former self.

After complicated negotiations, the Tiger Kloof Educational Trust purchased the property in October 1993 with funding from the Genesis Foundation and the Independent Development Trust. Over the next twelve months, funded by the Open Society Foundation and the Independent Development Trust, the school was physical restored — in itself as elaborate training project, involving 120 trainee artisans and the employment of up to 120 local craftsmen and labourers. In January 1995, 80 students were enrolled into Standard 6.

Learning at the new Tiger Kloof, largely takes the form of doing. Skills training is allied very strongly to market-orientated decisions. In catering, meals are budgeted. In building, houses are produced.

The courses are emphatically not ‘apprenticeships’ to a single, and in that sense limiting, marketable trade. On the contrary, pupils are taught technical competence in the context of how markets work. The curriculum at Tiger Kloof is therefore be vocational to the extent that it promotes occupational mobility.

In 1999 Gail du Toit was appointed principal of the secondary school and David Matthews took on the role of Rector of Tiger Kloof Educational Institution. In July 2001, David Matthews was succeeded as Rector by Peter Habberton, ex headmaster of Thomas More College in KwaZulu-Natal.

The secondary school has its full compliment of close on 400 pupils, half of whom are boarders. 2004 saw the opening of a primary section, starting with a Grade 0. There are currently 14 pupils enrolled in this section. This heralds a new era for Tiger Kloof. Not only providing quality education at the primary and pre-primary level, but also, in the following years, ensuring that pupils continuing on into the secondary school have an excellent foundation, especially in terms of language skills and numerical literacy, in order to excel in their chosen fields of study.

The Tiger Kloof Educational Institution is an Affiliate Member of ISASA.

School Phase:

• Primary
• Secondary

Lowest Grade: Grade 00
Highest Grade: Grade 12
Boarding: Yes
Boarding From: Grade 8
Number of Pupils: 568
Founding Year: 1904
Religious Affiliation: Christian
Lowest Tuition Fees Per Annum (2008): R3762
Highest Tuition Fees Per Annum (2008): R4070
Lowest Boarding Fees (inc. Tuition): R26125
Highest Boarding Fees (inc. Tuition): R26125
Examinations or Curricula:

• General Education and Training (GETC)
• National Senior Certificate (State)

Postal Address: PO Box 441, Vryburg
Postal Code: 8600
Telephone: 053 928 7000
Fax: 053 928 7033
Website: http://www.tigerkloof.nw.school.za/
Suburb: Tiger Kloof
City/Town: Vryburg
South African Province: North West
Country: South Africa