Institutional History

The history of the University dates back to 1920, when the foundation stone of the Longmarket Street Building of the then Cape Technical College was laid, in Cape Town. Establishment of the college followed more than ten years of representations by the community for a consolidation of the technical courses which, until then, had been offered at various venues in town.

In 1962 the Peninsula Technical College was established to cater for the steady growth in the number of Coloured apprentices in a variety of trades. Classes were conducted in Cape Town until the College relocated to Bellville in 1967. The two Colleges had their status changed to Colleges for Advanced Technical Education in the late sixties and early seventies respectively; they were then known as the Cape and the Peninsula Colleges for Advanced Technical Education.

After the promulgation of the Technikons Act in 1976, these Colleges were able to offer tertiary education in selected fields of study. During 1979 both colleges were legally established as Technikons: the Peninsula Technikon in Bellville and the Cape Technikon in Cape Town. The infrastructure of the two institutions grew dramatically over the following years, including the development of new campuses in Bellville and Cape Town and the acquisition of a Granger Bay Campus.

During the apartheid era, all educational institutions were forced to serve a specific race group. Then in 1987 the Peninsula Technikon opened its doors to all South Africans – and in the same year the Cape Technikon was granted special permission to have the Government regulation lifted on the quota for black students.

In 1993 the Technikons Act was promulgated, empowering Technikons to offer the degrees of Bachelor, Master and Doctor in Technology.

In 1997 the Peninsula Technikon restructured its academic programmes into the faculties of Engineering, Business and Science. Likewise, in 1999/2000 the Cape Technikon launched its new organisational structure with six faculties, a new corporate identity and an enhanced Vision and Mission. In 2001 the Boland and Mowbray Education Colleges were incorporated into the Cape Technikon, forming the Faculty of Education at Wellington and Mowbray.

In March 2001, the Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, announced the National Plan on Higher Education (HE) which was to change the HE landscape. A National Working Group (NWG) on HE was tasked to make recommendations to the Minister on the future of higher education. Each institution was required to make submissions to the Working Group on their programmes, qualification mixes and specialist niche areas.

In May 2002, the Minister then announced a possible merger of the Cape Technikon and the Peninsula Technikon in January 2005. This followed the NWG initial recommendation that the Peninsula Technikon and the University of the Western Cape should merge.

In August 2002 both institutions submitted responses to the Minister on the proposed merger and various meetings were held with stakeholders. Towards the end of 2002, the Minister then announced that the merger between the two Technikons would go ahead in January 2005.

In line with the Department of Education’s Guidelines for Mergers and Incorporations, the Cape and Peninsula Technikons set up combined and individual merger task teams. Merger offices were established early in 2003, to coordinate the process. In August 2003 the two Technikons made a combined submission to the Minister on a new name and address for the merged institution, as well as for the members of the Interim Council.

In October 2003 the Minister approved the address and new name as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He also announced that the status of technikons would be changed to universities of technology.

The Executive Interim Management for the new University was appointed towards the end of 2004. This was followed by the appointment of Professor L Vuyisa Mazwi-Tanga as the first Vice-Chancellor in February 2006.  In May 2008 Dr Trevor Manuel was elected as the first Chancellor of the University.

Vision
To be at the heart of technology education and innovation in Africa.

Mission
Our mission is to develop and sustain an empowering environment where , through teaching, learning, research and scholarship, our students and staff, in partnership with the community and with industry, are able to create and apply knowledge that contributes to development.

Core Values

• Integrity
• Respect
• Excellence
• Democracy
• Accountability
• Ubuntu
• Innovation
• Equity

De Wet Schutte is an Associate Professor in the faculty Applied Sciences, lecturing in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Studies. He holds a Master's degree in Sociology from Stellenbosch University and a Doctorate in Sociology from Pretoria University. He has worked for 18 years with the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria and in Cape Town, where he also started his own research consultancy practice (UniSearch). He was appointed to the CPUT (Bellville Campus) in 2006.