University of Fort Hare

The University of Fort Hare is a public university in Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was a key institution in higher education for black Africans from 1916 to 1959. It offered a Western-style, academically excellent education to students from across sub-Saharan Africa, creating a black African elite. Fort Hare alumni were part of many subsequent independence movements and governments of newly independent African countries.

In 1959, the university was subsumed by the apartheid system, but it is now part of South Africa's post-apartheid public higher education system. The University's main campus is located on the Tyhume river, in a town known as Alice in English and Dikeni in Xhosa language. It is in the Eastern Cape Province about 50 km west of King Williams Town (or eQonce) in a region that for a while was known as the "independent" Bantustan of Ciskei. In 2011, the Alice campus had some 6400 students. A second campus at the Eastern Cape provincial capital of Bhisho was built in 1990 and hosts a few hundred students, while the campus in East London, acquired through incorporation in 2004, has some 4300 students. The University has five faculties (Education, Law, Management & Commerce, Science & Agriculture, Social Sciences & Humanities) all of which offer qualifications up to the doctoral level.

The Fort

History

Originally, Fort Hare was a British fort in the wars between British and the Xhosa of the 19th century. Some of the ruins of the fort are still visible today, as well as graves of some of the British soldiers who died while on duty there. Missionary activity (James Stewart) led to the creation of a school for missionaries from which at the beginning of the 20th century the university resulted. In accord with its Christian principles, fees were low and heavily subsidised. Several scholarships were also available for indigent students.

University

Fort Hare is one of the oldest universities in southern Africa, and was the first Western-style tertiary education institution in the whole continent to be open to non-white students. (African madrasahs have been teaching Islam and other subjects, at a scholarly level, to all races since the 9th century.) A number of notable students have attended Fort Hare, including some who were expelled for protests during the period of white minority rule and thus did not graduate.

Ranking

Anti-apartheid activity

In the struggle years there was much anti-apartheid activity, including the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko. A few students became politically active and opposed the apartheid authorities who enjoyed the unqualified support of the Fort Hare authorities since it became a University in 1972.

University of Fort Hare Strategic Plans

Following a period of decline in the 1990s, Professor Derrick Swarts was appointed as Vice-Chancellor with the task of re-establishing the University on a sound footing. The programme launched by Prof. Swartz was the UFH Strategic Plan 2000. The plan was meant to address the universities financial situation and academic quality standards simultaneously. The focus of the university was narrowed and consequently 5 faculties remained:

• Education
• Science & Agriculture
• Social Sciences & Humanities
• Management & Commerce
• Law

Further narrowing the focus, 14 institutes were founded to deal with specific issues, such as the UNESCO Oliver Tambo Chair of Human Rights. Through their location the institutes have excellent access to poor rural areas, and consequently emphasis is placed on the role of research in improving quality of life and economic growth (and especially sustainable job creation). Among the outreach programmes, the Telkom Centre of Excellence maintains a "living laboratory" of 4 schools at Dwesa on the Wild Coast, which have introduced computer labs and internet access to areas that until 2005 did not even have electricity. The projects at Dwesa focus research on Information and Communication for Development (ICD).

Incorporation of Rhodes University's former campus in East London in 2004 gave the University an urban base and a coastal base for the first time. Subsequent growth and development on this campus have been rapid. Initial developments of the new multi-campus university were guided by a three-year plan; currently the University is following the new "Strategic Plan 2009-2016", set to take the institution to its centennial year.

Notable alumni

(Others, unknown DOB)

• Tiyo Soga - religion, Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Africa
• K. Mokhele - science
• Don Ncube - business

See also

• List of universities in South Africa

External links

• Official website