This is from a Canadian SJA Instructor (me) so your national protocols/curriculum may differ, but I think the general advice will be sound.

Think about what you want to provide. Do you want everyone to have an official SJA Standard First Aid certificate? Will Emergency First Aid training suffice? (EFA is essentially the first half of the Standard First Aid 2-day course.) Do they need a formal certificate or just the training?

One solution may be to get a school teacher certified as a SJA instructor; he/she could then teach the course as part of their normal teaching duties. (They could also pick up some extra money on the side by organising and teaching their own courses, so it may be an attractive option.)

In Canada, there is a $31 fee (includes $13 for the workbook) to register a student on a course. For recognized youth groups, they give (or used to) a $10 per student discount. If you don't need to register the course, you don't need to pay the registration fee, just buy the workbooks. Once you've bought the workbooks, they belong to the school and could be re-used for the next class. If students want the certificate (as opposed to just the training with no certificate) they should be expected to cough up the registration fee (which could be as low as $8).

In Canada, SJA has a group liability insurance policy that provides $1 million liability coverage to anyone with a current certificate, in the event that they get sued; SJA will also provide lawyers to defend you in court. (So far in Canada, only 3 SJA First Aiders have ever been sued; all three lawsuits were tossed out.) But this wouldn't apply to someone who took an unregistered course, or whose certificate had expired.

You may consider drafting the SJA cadets at your school to assist; we commonly ask our more senior cadets/crusaders to assist us in evaluating the practical skills of students, particularly when we have a large class. This may count towards their Grand Prior's Award, if South Africa has this program, so it may be attractive to the youth members for that reason.

In Canada, we have a course called "We Can Help". It's aimed at 8-year olds, so your Grade 8 students may find it condescending (especially the free colouring book <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> ) but it's designed to be taught by anyone with a Standard First Aid certificate and teaching experience, and it does cover the basics of First Aid, so a good teacher should be able to adapt it to an older audience.