Erika Theunissen’s dream of building the ideal school developed slowly. Over three decades working as a remedial teacher and therapist in the Vaal Triangle town of Vereeniging, she has gathered ideas, researched best practices and collected equipment that she would one day use.
But when she and her husband Sakkie launched their school with three children in 2018, growth was fast and unstoppable. Today, the Fundamental Faculty group of schools consists of a pre-primary, primary and high school with a total of 800 children and 72 teaching staff. Next year, the first set of Matrics will graduate from the high-quality centre of learning that was only an idea scarcely six years ago.
That such dynamic growth happened over an economically difficult period – disrupted by a global pandemic no less – is a testament to the formidable entrepreneurial strength of team Theunissen.
Erika brings deep educational knowledge and thirty years of experience at many state and private schools on which she built a strong vision of an ideal modern school – a dynamic, transparent environment where passionate teachers nurture children holistically and identify any learning weaknesses early on and build their strengths for all of their twelve to fifteen years schooling.
Sakkie, a lifelong entrepreneur who started in clothing retail and built a pioneering medical business that introduced endoscopic back surgery in South Africa, brings international business and financial knowledge to the team.
When Sakkie sold his medical business in 2017, the couple threw themselves into turning Erika’s vision into reality. Sakkie remembers asking Erika to write down all of the features that she wanted for her ideal school. “It was a long list,” says Erika.
Sakkie translated the list into a financial model and they concluded that the school would have to be big in order to make it affordable for local families. That meant having to raise outside finance while Erika started with the Fundamental Factory Pre-school on Sakkie’s business premises in the leafy suburbs of Vereeniging.
Erika’s reputation in the region’s education circles was such that they were able to draw the best teachers from the start, and the 120 children recruited in the first year were from families that shared their passion for education. They in turn became ambassadors for the project so that the school grew as a community of shared values.
The school, which offers extra-curricular activities such as robotics, music, chess and computer skills, has become a home for top professional services ranging from swimming lessons to sports coaching, all of which are administered by the school.
Meanwhile, Sakkie set about raising finance to shape and expand the building to fit the vision. Soon it became clear that none of the banks were interested in an educational start-up, especially not in difficult economic conditions.
Sakkie managed to attract the interest of private investors, but they wanted too big a share of the business. Then he found the right financier in Business Partners Limited, which funded the expansion in return for a minority shareholding in the first premises purchased which the Theunissens are buying back over time.
“Business Partners Limited were excited about our vision,” says Erika. They required detailed plans and documentation but did not insist on full security. They agreed to a subsequent round of funding for the building of more classrooms based on turnover-linked royalties. All of this, and the successful growth of the school, has put the project into a position where the banks now seem to be queueing up to fund further expansion, the latest of which includes the building of a state-of-the-art sports complex.
Up until now the school has been using and improving the municipal sports grounds. One of the challenges that Sakkie and Erika faced was the ability of the authorities to keep up with the compliance needs of such a fast-growing school. The municipality also insisted on a new traffic circle, all of which Fundamental built on their own cost.
The Fundamental schools are thriving, and the next year or two will see the filling out of a fully -fledged Fundamental High School. Yet the Theunissens’ dream is far from over. They are thinking hard about starting their own teacher’s college, and working to establish a robust management team for the group so that a new generation can continue to build on what they started.
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