The Technikon Witwatersrand was a

technikon A technikon was a post-secondary institute of technology (polytech) in South Africa. It focused on career-oriented vocational training. There were 15 technikons in the 1990s, but they were merged or restructured as universities (especially universi ...

located in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. On 1 January 2005, it merged with

Rand Afrikaans University The Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was a prominent South African institution of higher education and research that served the greater Johannesburg area and surroundings from 1967 to 2004. It has since merged with the Technikon Witwatersrand ...

and the Soweto and East Rand campuses of

Vista University Vista University, South Africa was established in 1981 by the apartheid government to ensure that urban black South Africans seeking tertiary education would be accommodated within the townships rather than on campuses reserved for other populatio ...

to form the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is a public university located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the ...

. The former

East Rand Campus has subsequently been permanently closed.

Origins

Technikon Witwatersrand traces its roots back to the beginning of the 20th century to the Transvaal Technical Institute, which was established in 1903 to serve the needs of the gold-mining industry. For the greater part of its existence, it was housed in a temporary wood and corrugated iron structure, affectionately known as the Tin Temple, on the corner of Rissik and Plein streets in central Johannesburg. The Institute grew and developed, and in time gave rise to the Universities of the

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...

and

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

. In 1923, an Act of Parliament made provision for technical training, which led to the establishment of the Witwatersrand Technical Institute in 1925. This was the founding date of the Technikon Witwatersrand. The Witwatersrand Technical Institute underwent a series of changes: it became the Witwatersrand Technical College in 1930, the Witwatersrand College for Advanced Technical Education in 1968 and finally, the Technikon Witwatersrand in 1979. Today, it is a large and complex institution. Some 12,000 students and 1,200 staff members from all spheres of the city's multifaceted community make up a vibrant educational centre extending across the east–west axis of Johannesburg.

The merger

On 31 May 2002, the Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, released the government's proposals for the restructuring of higher education in South Africa. Mergers between various educational institutions in South Africa were then proposed as necessary to the restructuring process. Rand Afrikaans University and Technikon Witwatersrand were two of the institutions that were selected to merge with each other and are to become one comprehensive institution. Officially, the Technikon Witwatersrand and Rand Afrikaans University merged on 1 January 2005 to form a new institution by the name of the University of Johannesburg. The new institution offers both academic and technology degrees. The final meetings and preparations took place in 2004 so as to ensure that all structures were in place and that everything ran smoothly when the University of Johannesburg opened in 2005. {{Coord missing, South Africa Schools in Johannesburg Defunct universities and colleges in South Africa Universities in Gauteng Educational institutions established in 1903 Educational institutions disestablished in 2005 1903 establishments in Transvaal Colony