Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Infobox University
name = Cape Peninula University of Technology


motto = Creating Futures
established = 2005 as a merger of Cape Technikon(1920) and Peninsula Technikon(1962)
type = Public
chancellor = Trevor Manuel
vice_chancellor = Prof L Vuyisa Mazwi-Tanga
students = 26,000
city = Cape Town
state = Western Cape
country = South Africa
campus = District Six and Bellville campuses
colours = Blue and White
nickname = Cats
affiliations = AAU, CHEC, HESA
website = [http://www.cput.ac.za/ www.cput.ac.za]

Cape Peninsula University of Technology, a university in Cape Town, South Africa, is the first and only university of Technology in the Western Cape province, and is also the largest university in the province, with over 26 000 students.

It was formed in January 2005 from the merger of the Cape Technikon and Peninsula Technikon. This followed years of change in the higher education landscape of South Africa. In 1993, the Technikons Act was promulgated, which allowed technikons to offer Bachelor's degrees (B.Tech), Master's and Doctoral degrees in Technology. In March 2001, Kader Asmal (then Minister of Education) announced the National Plan on Higher Education, and in May 2002 he announced the possible merger of the two institutions, with the national working committee also recommending the University of the Western Cape to be included in the merger. Towards the end of 2002, the final merger was announced, and in October 2003 the new name was approved. The Executive Interim Management was appointed towards the end of 2004.

Prof. L Vuyisa Mazwi-Tanga was appointed as the first Vice-Chancellor of CPUT in February 2006. Also at this time, the nine faculties of the original institutions were merged and re-organised into six: Applied Science, Business, Education and Social Sciences, Engineering, Health and Wellness Sciences, and Informatics & Design. A separate postgraduate unit was established to offer multidisciplinary postgraduate programmes and funded research known as the e-Innovation Academy, and as from March 2008 the Faculty of Informatics & Design Research Unit.

Trevor Manuel was appointed chancellor of the university in April 2008

Fees: Foreign students (not from SADC), are required to pay double the fees of local students. Currently, there are about 200 Chinese students charged by this rule.

Bursary: The university offers bursaries to the Master's and Doctor's degree students.

Co-Operative Education

The University has chosen to take a unique path in the way in which they structure their higher education courses. The large majority of courses offered by CPUT incorporate in-service training; the training consists of an internship, usually six months to a year. The University's comprehensive co-operative education policy ensures the student is placed within a company approved by the university; this ensures that institutional academic learning is incorporated into work-based content.

External links

* [http://www.cput.ac.za/ Official site]
* [http://www.tisi.za.org/ The Information Society Institute (an initiative of CPUT)]