At the height of Oprah Winfrey’s fame and power over two decades ago, she decided to found a girls’ school in South Africa. Oprah showcased the journey towards building the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy of Girls on her syndicated talk show. You could see her learning as she went along, balancing her own accountability alongside trying to manage a project that quickly grew unwieldy. It was clear that, after the first decade, she became sort of jaded about the process of operating a school and perhaps she wondered if she was actually making a tangible difference. I believe her heart was in the right place, but I also think that she decided to start the school without really understanding what a huge undertaking it would really be. Well, I give Oprah credit for sticking with it for 20 years, but this journey will come to an end next year.

The South Africa school that Oprah Winfrey opened nearly two decades ago will be closing and transitioning its operations back to local officials while Winfrey focuses on an “expanded” scholarship program for girls there, she announced this week.

“The dream was never simply to build a school. It was to invest in the limitless potential of young women,” Winfrey, 72, said in a statement on Wednesday, July 29, announcing that the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy of Girls will end operations in its current form at the end of 2027. From there, the provincial government will take over and continue operating the facility as a school, a rep for Winfrey tells PEOPLE.

The academy will graduate two more classes of girls and the remaining students “will go to other top-tier schools with their tuition paid for in total by Ms. Winfrey through their graduation,” the rep says.

In her statement, Winfrey said that her mission “doesn’t end with one campus. It continues in every girl whose future can be transformed through education.”

“I’m excited that this next chapter will allow us to reach even more young women across South Africa and continue the promise that began more than 20 years ago,” she continued.

The scholarship program will begin after the academy’s students have graduated, according to Winfrey’s rep, who says that “overall, there will be double the amount of girls who will have access to education through this model.”

“That is the core of the decision to shift to this new model after seeing the success of the students the past 20 years,” the rep says.

More than 1,000 girls have graduated from Winfrey’s academy since it opened in 2007.

[From People]

Of all the ways to end this project, I would argue that this is the best way. It will remain a functioning school, it just won’t be operated by Oprah and her team. And she’s committed to giving scholarships and truly investing in young women and helping them find more opportunities. As I said, it’s remarkable that Oprah stuck with it for twenty years. I remember there was a section in her docuseries with Prince Harry, The Me You Can’t See, where she focused on mental health within the student body. I might have to rewatch some of that.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.