Education

The western cape has excellent education facilities, but a large disparity still exists between the quality of resources offered at schools and colleges in the cities compared to townships and rural areas. The Cape Town metropolitan area is the best served in terms of educational opportunity.

The Western Cape provincial government allocated 35.6% of its budget to education in 2009/10, amounting to R10.3-billion. The largest increase was for Grade R, a programme to include five-year-olds so as to give them a better chance to succeed in formal school.

More than 800 schools have been provided with computer laboratories (25 to 40 computers) through the Khanya Technology in Education Project since its inception. In the 2008/09 financial year, there was a strong focus on school safety. Sixty of the 109 schools identified as high risk received closed-circuit security cameras. During the year, 255 schools were equipped with libraries for the first time.

At high-school level, the Western Cape achieves relatively good matriculation results. The province has the top scores in the nation for overall matric passes (80.6%), matric endorsements, and passes in mathematics and physical science.

Specialist training
The South African Maritime Training Academy operates out of Simon’s Town and is designed to provide opportunities for young South Africans to learn the skills required to work in the maritime industry. The academy came into being as a result of a donation from AP Möller Group in 2003.

The SAS Saldanha Naval College on the West Coast trains military personnel in the requirements for running the nation’s naval fleet. The province has several hotel schools, with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology offering a series of courses under the heading of Hospitality Management.

Tertiary education
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is South Africa’s oldest university, dating back to its founding in 1829 as the South African College. Today there are more than 21 500 students enrolled at UCT, including foreign students from more than 100 countries. There are 720 permanent staff and 32 A-rated researchers (40% of South Africa’s total)

Stellenbosch University also dates back to the 19th century, and today has more than 23 000 students enrolled. Stellenbosch University is recognised as one of the four top research universities in South Africa and has one of the country’s highest proportions of postgraduate students.

The University of the Western Cape (UWC) has strong links to the country’s struggle against oppression and has shown steady increases in its student enrolment over the years.

The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) came into being with the merger of the Peninsula Technikon and Cape Technikon in 2003.

University education is available in George, in the Southern Cape, through the two premises run by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, which has its headquarters in Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape. Saasveld is home to the School of Natural Resource Management (forestry and wood management) and delivers courses in business and social science, accounting and business management, among others.

The other university offering courses via a George regional office is the University of South Africa (Unisa). The major regional office located in the northern suburbs of Cape Town offers tutorials and student support.

Business schools
Each of the province’s three universities has a business school. In addition, CPUT offers management courses in several disciplines, as do the various FET colleges around the province. The University of the Western Cape’s business school is a young institution, having been launched in 2008, but it has ambitious goals. The University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, located in the Waterfront precinct, was named Best Business School in Africa at the Eduniversal World Convention of Best Business Schools in 2009. A survey published by the Aspen Institute for 2009/10 ranks the Stellenbosch University Business School as the 39th best such school in the world.

FET colleges and Abet
There are six further education and training (FET) colleges in the Western Cape, with each having several campuses. Some are in fairly small towns, thus making further education more accessible to people living in rural areas.

The College of Cape Town has nine outlets and caters to the central city. North Link College is northern-suburbs based, while False Bay College has campuses in Noordhoek, Muizenberg and Mitchells Plain. Outside of the Cape metropole, Boland College looks after Stellenbosch, Worcester, Paarl and Caledon, while the Southern Cape College covers a wide area, namely, George, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn, Plettenberg Bay and Beaufort West. Vredenburg, Vredendal, Malmesbury, Atlantis and Citrusdal all fall under the West Coast College catchment area.

In 2007, the Western Cape Education Department listed 363 public Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) institutions, at which 37 561 students were enrolled.

ONLINE RESOURCES
Council of Higher Education: www.che.ac.za
FET Colleges: www.fetcolleges.co.za
National Departments of Basic Education and Higher Education and Training: www.education.gov.za
South African Maritime Training Academy: www.samtra.co.za
Stellenbosch University: www.sun.ac.za
University of Cape Town: www.uct.ac.za
University of the Western Cape: www.uwc.ac.za
Western Cape Education Department Online: http://wced.wcape.gov.za