Categories: South Africa Universities

traditional universities in south africa 2024-2025

This is a list of South African universities. Colleges and universities are defined as accredited, degree-granting tertiary institutions for the purposes of this list. As of September 2022, only South African public degree-granting institutions may use the term “university,” while other accredited private for-profits or not-for-profit degree-granting institutions are more likely to use the terms “colleges, institutes, or business schools.”

Some of these private institutions are foreign universities and local campuses. Degree-granting institutions (both public and private) must be registered with the Council on Higher Education and have their specific degree programs accredited by it.

South Africa began reforming its public higher education system in 2004, merging and integrating small public universities into larger institutions and renaming all higher education institutions “universities” (previously there had been several types of higher education institutions). The universities and “technikons” of the country, which were merged with others and thus no longer exist, are listed at the end of the article.

In 2013, two new universities were established: Sol Plaatje University and the University of Mpumalanga. They are tentatively classified as technology universities pending clarification of their programs.

Universities that are public
In South Africa, public universities are classified into three types: traditional universities, which provide theoretically oriented university degrees, universities of technology (“technikons”), which provide vocationally oriented diplomas and degrees, and comprehensive universities, which provide a combination of both types of qualification.

Traditional universities

List of Traditional Universities in South Africa