A R3.2 Billion Afrikaans University Campus Is Rising East of Pretoria

If you have driven out past Pretoria East on the Boschkop road recently, you may have noticed earthmovers carving up the landscape near Mooiplaats. What is rising there is not just another housing estate or shopping mall. It is a R3.2 billion statement of intent, and it is called Akademia.

This is South Africa's newest private Afrikaans university campus, and when the dust settles, it will house more than 6,000 students on a site just off Boschkop Road, roughly eight kilometres from Solomon Mahlangu Drive. Construction on phase one kicked off in January 2026 and, if everything stays on track, first-year students should be registering here in 2028.

A campus built from scratch

The numbers are staggering. The first phase alone comes in at around R1.8 billion and will deliver the academic heart of the campus, lecture halls, laboratories, a library, and enough residence space for 750 students. By the time phase two wraps up in 2029, that accommodation will double to 1,500 beds across eight residences.

But this is not just about classrooms and dorms. The plans include a 2,500 square metre student centre that will serve as the social hub, a 2,000-seat auditorium, a chapel plaza framed by water canals and gardens, and what the developers are calling a dome structure of glass and steel, twenty metres high and thirty-two metres across. There will be sports facilities for rugby, cricket, netball, tennis, athletics, hockey, and swimming, plus an experimental farm to support future degrees in agriculture and natural sciences.

The infrastructure alone tells you how serious this project is. Over seven million bricks, 110,000 square metres of plaster, and forty kilometres of fibre optic cable. The campus will store nineteen million litres of water on site and is being designed to run as independently of municipal grids as possible.

Who is behind it

Akademia was founded in 2012 by the Solidarity Movement, the same organisation that built Sol-Tech technical college in Centurion. The campus is being co-developed with Kanton, a property group that specialises in large community-backed projects. Kanton is financing the build by raising capital from institutions and wealthy individuals first, then opening up smaller investment opportunities to the broader community.

The project was first announced in August 2024. Mass earthworks began in July 2025, and the official sod-turning took place in November 2025. Henk Schalekamp, Kanton's managing director, has called it a "giant monument for Afrikaans higher education." Dirk Hermann, CEO of Solidarity and director of Akademia, put it more personally in a recent social media post, thanking every Solidarity member who contributed over the years to make this possible.

Why this matters now

For decades, South African law only allowed public institutions to call themselves universities. Private players were limited to labels like "higher education institution," no matter how comprehensive their offering. That changed in October 2025, when the Department of Higher Education promulgated a new policy allowing private universities to register for the first time.

Akademia is not a university yet, but it is laying the groundwork. It already offers twelve degrees across five faculties, from BCom and LLB to BEd and BSc Computer Sciences. Student numbers have grown from forty in 2012 to more than 3,800 today. If it meets the research and community engagement criteria, it could apply for full university status down the line.

The bigger picture

Akademia's expansion comes at a time when Afrikaans-medium tuition at public universities has been shrinking. Several historically Afrikaans institutions have moved toward English-only instruction in recent years, arguing it improves accessibility. Akademia's founders see things differently. They believe there is still a strong demand for Afrikaans higher education, and they are backing that belief with bricks, mortar, and billions of rands.

The new campus will consolidate Akademia's current operations, which are spread across interim facilities in Centurion and Paarl. It will also give students something they have not had before, a fixed address with a proper campus life, sports teams, student societies, and all the traditions that come with it.

How to follow the build

Kanton has launched a "Toekomsbouer" campaign with a dedicated website where supporters can track progress and eventually invest. The name means "future builder" in Afrikaans, which feels fitting for a project that is quite literally building the future of Afrikaans academic life from the ground up.

Whether you see it as a necessary counterbalance to language policy shifts at public universities, or simply as an impressive piece of private sector investment in education, one thing is clear. The skyline east of Pretoria is about to look very different.

Key facts at a glance