{"id":805208,"date":"2025-01-02T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=805208"},"modified":"2025-01-02T09:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T07:22:12","slug":"south-africas-oldest-university-deteriorating-in-front-of-everyones-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/805208\/south-africas-oldest-university-deteriorating-in-front-of-everyones-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s oldest university deteriorating in front of everyone’s eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The University of Cape Town\u2019s upper campus shows clear signs of neglect and decay, including water damage, paint peeling off walls, and broken ceilings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was revealed in a series of posts on X<\/a><\/strong> by South African attorney and educational specialist Richard Wilkinson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University of Cape Town was founded in 1829 as the South African College, a high school for boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The College had a small tertiary-education facility that grew substantially after 1880 when gold and diamonds were discovered in the north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to increased funding from private and government sources, the college developed into a fully-fledged university from 1880 to 1900.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It grew into the top-rated university in South Africa and Africa and one of the top-rated tertiary institutions in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many University of Cape Town researchers are recognised as world leaders in their respective fields and produce globally renowned research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the university has faced significant challenges in recent years, which is clearly visible in the state of its campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilkinson visited the University of Cape Town in December 2024 and shared photos of the deterioration he saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI spent an hour walking around the University of Cape Town\u2019s upper campus. I could see clear signs of neglect and decay everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he saw dirty steps, paint peeling off walls, and an elevator that was out of order. There was also widespread mould and water damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilkinson posted pictures of broken tutorial boxes, a door which has lost its vent cover, and wall signs that have been ripped off and never replaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were also broken ceilings, dirty walls, random mops lying around, and a door that had lost its brass fittings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that struck Wilkinson was the state of the signage on the upper campus. \u201cMany signs are in a truly terrible state\u2014faded, broken, and peeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the sign by the rugby field was unreadable. He added that the Cissie Gool Mall sign was knocked over with chevron tape and rubble strewn around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis shouldn\u2019t take long to fix or cost a lot of money. It just seems that no one cares,\u201d Wilkinson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also a lot of rubbish around the campus, and Wilkinson said many of the rubbish bins don\u2019t seem to have been cleared out in weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a noticeable amount of litter on the campus. Sometimes lying in giant piles as if it has been dumped there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that stood out for Wilkinson was the poor state of the drainpipes. \u201cThey look as if they haven\u2019t been painted in 10 years and are rusting away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that plants are growing in gutters, which is not good for drainage and is a serious fire hazard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The general state of buildings on the UCT campus is poor, with broken masonry, broken and unmaintained windows, and broken doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were once beautiful green lampposts outside of the PD Hahn building. These seem to have been broken with the bases turned into rusting rubbish bins,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gardens are also in a poor state. \u201cIt is as if no one is watering the plants and no one is tending to the gardens. Everything is overgrown or dying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe University of Cape Town\u2019s upper campus is starting to resemble a poorly-run municipality like Johannesburg or Durban or Pietermaritzburg,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilkinson blamed misguided ideologies, commonplace at many South African universities, for the decay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Cape Town responds<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The University of Cape Town told BusinessTech that it had noted the social media posts in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUCT is a large institution featuring several precincts spread across five campuses in different locations,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs such, the pictures shared on social media do not reflect the general state of the university campuses.\u201d It said maintaining a clean and safe environment is a top priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs with most institutions, UCT conducts a planned and ongoing maintenance programme, utilising the vacation period to undertake core aspects of this work,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe maintenance and litter collection matters previously alluded to have already been resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing skeleton staff over the vacation period means that other work will be attended to in due course, as the programme allows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Cape Town upper campus decay photos from Richard Wilkinson<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University of Cape Town\u2019s upper campus shows clear signs of neglect and decay, including water damage, paint peeling off walls, and broken ceilings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":805237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[21294,8389],"class_list":["post-805208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-richard-wilkinson","tag-university-of-cape-town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805208"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805377,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805208\/revisions\/805377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}