About Credo Business College: Innovative Learning for Professional Success in Accounting

Credo Business College (Credo) has its roots in the establishment of LH Education (LHE) in 2007.  Annie van der Merwe, Susan Gouws, Audrey Legodi, and Ilse Henderson, all involved in Higher Education, shared their concern about the large number of students that dropped out and thus just became part of the lost generation. South Africa’s university graduation rate of 15% is one of the lowest in the world. They asked themselves the question: can we help?

They established an educational institution that would focus on the technician levels in the financial sector. Annie, Ilze and Audrey were all lecturing in the financial field at various institutions.  University training is geared to prepare candidates for the higher-level jobs; but they knew that the sector also needed technicians at the lower levels. They wanted to give young unemployed people a set of job skills so that they can become employable, find a job, and become part of the economic system.  They understood the significance of being part of a professional body and considered this in the choice of qualifications to offer. 

All four women were directors and shareholders. The immediate goal was to become an accredited institution that offer accredited qualifications with the added advantage for the learners to belong to a professional body after graduation. LHE became an accredited training provider for the Association of Accounting Technicians (UK) – AAT(UK) in 2008. In 2017, Credo’s accreditation was transferred to the Accounting Technician South Africa (AT(SA)), an associate body of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).

Training started in 2009.  Audrey and Ilze left the company to focus on developing their own careers, and Susan managed the company during the early years. Annie resigned her academic position at UJ in 2010 to give her full attention to building LH Education as an institution of choice. She had the vision to broaden the scope of the qualifications, ensuring high quality in the delivering of the qualifications whilst incorporating excellent learner support. This became the brand of LHE.  With Annie at the helm as Managing Director, giving her all, LHE succeeded in gaining accreditation with QCTO as well as becoming an accredited provider of SAIT.  They added tax qualifications to their qualification mix and ensured that courses were offered through blended learning and distance learning, thus reaching learners across the country. In 2017, the company became Credo Business College.

Over 16 years, Credo was built up as an educational institution where the values that were the foundation of the company remained the same: high quality; integrity at all levels and in all matters; every individual learner is important and would get the best possible support to succeed.

Annie van der Merwe lived her belief that education is a human right, a powerful driver of development, and the most important factor to ensure equity and inclusion.  Steve Jobs said, “You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.