Download the Annual report 2011 - Unisa

UNISA ANNUAL REPORT 2011
BACKGROUND
AND CONTEXT
OF UNISA
The University of South Africa (Unisa) is as fascinating
as it is unique. At the grand old age of 138 years, Unisa
is South Africa’s oldest university and the longest standing
dedicated distance education university in the world.
Founded in 1873 as the University of the Cape of Good
Hope, the university became a federal university in 1918,
and in 1946 it became the first public university in the world
to teach exclusively by means of distance education. The federal
university was the examining body for seven constituent
institutions, which today comprise most of South Africa’s historically
‘white’ universities. It could therefore be claimed that
Unisa is also the primogenitor of a number of South Africa’s
oldest universities.
The past one-and-a-half centuries in South Africa have marked
some of the most pivotal moments in its history: moments that
have irrevocably changed the course of events in the country
and indeed the world. Seminal events include the Anglo-Boer
War in 1910, the First and Second World Wars, the assumption
of power of the nationalist government in 1948, the advent
of democracy and the ANC government in 1994, and
the complete reconfiguration of the higher education landscape
in 2001 from which the new Unisa emerged in 2004
as South Africa’s single, dedicated, comprehensive distance
education institution.
Throughout the years, Unisa was perhaps the only
university in the country to have resisted exclusionary dictates
and provided all people with access to education,
irrespective of race, colour or creed (although graduation
ceremonies were differentiated by race for a time
in terms of national legislation). This vibrant past is
mirrored in Unisa’s rich history, more particularly its
massive and impressive database of alumni, some of
whom are to be found in the most senior echelons
of society across the world. Given its rootedness
in South Africa and the African continent, Unisa
today can truly claim to be the African university
in the service of humanity.
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