History
Founded in 1873 as the University of the Cape of Good Hope, the University of South Africa (or Unisa as it is commonly known) spent most of its early history as an examining agency for Oxford and Cambridge universities and as an incubator from which most other universities in South Africa are descended. In 1946, it was given a new role as a distance education university and today it offers certificate, diploma and degree courses up to doctoral level.
Largely because it was a distance education university, it remained multiracial during the years of apartheid in South Africa. In January 2004, Unisa merged with Technikon Southern Africa (formerly known as Technikon SA) and incorporated the distance education component of Vista University. The combined institution retained the name University of South Africa, unlike other merged institutions, which underwent name changes. It is now organised by college and by school; see below.
Read more about this topic: University Of South Africa
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)