Parents are upset that their daughters, handpicked to receive a world-class private education financed by billionaire Oprah Winfrey, are being treated more like juvenile delinquents than promising young students.

Students at Oprah’s South African school for girls are only allowed to call their parents on the weekends, and all calls are strictly prohibited during the week. What’s more, parents can only visit once a month for a mere two hours! The visits have to be approved at least two weeks in advance by school officials, and only four people can come at a time.

Every aspect of the girl’s lives is controlled by the school, from what they eat to contact with the outside world. They are allowed no sweets like chocolate or junk food, and sneaking food can cause them to lose “points,” which serve as currency inside the school.

Some parents are saying that their 11-12 year-old daughters are miserable and they will be forced to remove them from the all-expenses paid school they once saw as an opportunity of a lifetime.

The rules at Oprah Winfrey’s upscale school at Henley-on-Klip near Johannesburg are apparently so strict that even the parents are complaining.

That’s the word from upset parents, who say the school rules make it difficult for them to keep contact with their children. They would have aired their concerns during a satellite link-up with the Queen of Talk a week ago, but that was cancelled at short notice by the school’s management body.

The girls could receive visitors every fortnight, but parents can now only visit them once a month.

Frances Mans, foster mother of Gweneth Mulder, said last week she would take her daughter out of the school if the rules were not changed. “Surely this isn’t a prison?”

Cellphones and e-mail correspondence are out of bounds during the week, and girls are only allowed to phone their parents at weekends. The maximum number of visitors per pupil is four, and visits have to be approved by the school at least two weeks in advance. Mans said she had to wait at the security gate for half an hour to be signed in when she went to visit her daughter last Sunday. “It was a nightmare. We had only two hours to see my child. Surely this isn’t a prison or an institution?” The names of visitors must also match those on the security guard’s list before guests are allowed in.

Parents are not allowed to smuggle junk food in to the girls past the matrons. “Then the girls lose points,” says Mans.

The girls get points for “good behaviour”, which they can exchange at a school shop for clothes and caps. “The poor children are not even allowed to have any treats. Their diet is fruit, yoghurt and sandwiches. When they go on holiday for a month in April they’ll be stuffing themselves with sweets and chocolates in any case.”

The head of the school has confirmed that there can be only four visitors per girl per month. If she comes from a big family she won’t be able to see all her brothers and sisters in a single month, not to mention ailing family members or aunts or uncles.

School head John Samuels justified the extreme confinement of the students by saying “We have the security and well-being of the girls at heart… if there’s too much movement on the premises at the weekend, it disturbs the school spirit.”

While I would like to think that it’s not Oprah’s fault that her $40 million school is keeping girls aged 11-12 isolated from their families, I doubt she doesn’t manage things remotely down to the letter. She picked the attendees herself, made sure the facility was designed with luxurious features like a hair salon and even chose the color of the bricks used for the buildings.

She has been outspoken about her vision for empowering young women and giving them a new start in life. Oprah says she started the school to feel a connection to charity for once.

When I first started making a lot of money, I really became frustrated with the fact that all I did was write cheque after cheque to this or that charity without really feeling like it was a part of me,” she said in an interview with Newsweek magazine which went on sale on Monday.

“At a certain point, you want to feel that connection.”

Maybe Oprah thinks she’s their family now.

I’m not bashing Oprah’s generous charity, her purpose or her vision for the school. This latest news makes it seem like the school is sequestering young girls at the cost of their family relationships. To me it sounds like someone is valuing honorable intentions over the real needs of young girls.

Thanks to Hip Hop Crunch for some of these pictures and the story.