Mpumalanga Business 2022-23

SPECIAL FEATURE
Educational opportunities are
growing in Mpumalanga
A new university and active technical and vocational colleges
offer a wide range of qualifications.
The northern edge of the city of Mbombela has a striking
new architectural addition – the University of Mpumalanga.
On a hill north of the Crocodile River a complex of
department headquarters and residence buildings is taking
shape as home to the province’s first university.
By building on existing institutions such as teacher training
colleges, the university has progressively offered more courses
and taken on more students over the last few years. The official
launch was in October 2013 with the first cohort of 169 students
registered in just three programmes in 2014. By 2020, the university
was offering 26 qualifications to 4 200 students.
The university currently offers 48 programmes in three faculties:
Education; Agriculture and Natural Sciences; and Economics and Business
Sciences. There are plans to add new programmes at both undergraduate
and postgraduate levels and to establish the faculty of Humanities
and Social Sciences and the School of Law. By 2024, the plan is to offer
approximately 70 qualifications to over 8 000 students. That is the year in
which the university’s first doctoral graduates will be capped. Research
relevant to the needs of the province can now be done at local level. Issues
such as acid mine water leaking from abandoned mining sites and new
applications for products in the timber industry are among the kinds of
research that will boost economic
productivity in Mpumalanga, and
lead to better socio-economic
conditions for citizens.
As with the country’s other
new university, in Kimberley in the
Northern Cape, the establishment
of a new institution opened the
door for generating new buildings
of outstanding quality by means of
a competitive bidding process. The
first round of winners comprised
four architectural companies,
namely Cohen and Garson, Conco
Bryan Architects, TC Design Group
(Pty) Ltd and Gapp Architects and
Urban Designers (Pty) Ltd. They
were chosen from an early field of
147 companies.
University of Mpumalanga
students have distinguished
MPUMALANGA BUSINESS 2022/23
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