We review events from the past year and provide an outlook for the 2021 academic year. While there was minimal uptake of home-schooling in response to the spread of COVID-19, demand for online schooling grew in 2020. In our view, the positioning of Evolve Online within the ADH school portfolio implies the company is looking to grow its target market rather than only capturing short-term COVID-19 induced demand for online schooling. We think Curro Online enrolments are unlikely to be significant but could help offset further COH enrolment losses. Considering the impact of COVID-19 on the SA economy, we believe COH’s high exposure to the local market is a risk.
Without acquisitions, we believe ADH and COH may be entering a period of low enrolment growth.
