US talk-show host Oprah Winfrey says the school for girls that she launched in South Africa nearly 20 years will close next year. At the end of the 2027 academic year, the expansive boarding school campus near Johannesburg is to be handed over to local education authorities as per the original agreement, her statement says. Students enrolled at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG) who will not have graduated when it closes will be offered full scholarships elsewhere. More than 1,000 girls have graduated from the school aimed at those from under-privileged backgrounds and inspired after Winfrey met anti-apartheid icon and former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2002. “The dream was never simply to build a school,” Winfrey, 72, explained in a statement.