The University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, South Africa, has announced the availability of tuition bursaries for full-time and part-time studies in 2016. All research master’s and PhD students who register in 2016, will receive funding to cover their tuition fees. South African and International students are eligible to apply.
The Postgraduate School in the Johannes Brill Building can provide more information about all the scholarships and bursaries available. Contact the postgraduate school.
The University of the Free State is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in South Africa. As a traditional university, it teaches, conducts research and community engagement across a comprehensive range of disciplines. The UFS has three campuses, of which its founding campus is in the judicial capital of South Africa, Bloemfontein, which is also the capital of the Free State Province and located in the centre of the country. Bloemfontein is about four hours from Johannesburg and Pretoria, six hours from Durban and Port Elizabeth, and ten hours from Cape Town by highway. Its international airport links to all major cities in South Africa and several in Southern Africa. It opened its doors in 1904 on the Bloemfontein Campus. Since then, the institution has grown to more than 31 000 students, spread across seven faculties over three campuses.
In addition to the founding campus, the university has a South Campus in Bloemfontein. This smaller campus provides alternative access to higher education for promising students who have not obtained the required marks in their final school examinations. The Bloemfontein Campus is home to a number of nationally and internationally leading research units, including the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, the Institute for Groundwater Research; it is home to a number of NRF Research Chairs, NRF rated leading researchers and research teams, across all faculties.
Our vibrant Qwaqwa Campus in the Eastern Free State (at the border between Free State Province, KwaZulu-Natal Province and the Kingdom of Lesotho) serves a rapidly-growing number of rural students from the immediate area and surrounding provinces. The Qwaqwa Campus is becoming a centre for rural alpine research.
The changes taking place at the university continue to capture the imagination of people everywhere, including the international media, and our growing base of international universities.
Inspiring excellence. Transforming lives. These objectives are the driving forces at the heart of the UFS. Through our Human and Academic Projects, we are a university internationally recognised for human reconciliation and compassion as well as for excellence in academic achievement.
Academic Project
One of the reasons for the broader interest in the UFS is our very public commitment to the highest academic standards. This is at the core of our Academic Project. The UFS is a strong academic institution, marked by distinctiveness in teaching, research, and public scholarship. The Academic Project includes rigorous academic entrance qualifications for first-time students, elevated standards for the professoriate, the transformation of undergraduate curricula, the recruitment of world-class professors, and the identification and promotion of next-generation professors.
Human Project
The UFS remains conscious, however, of its responsibility to turn ideas into action, to make research count in the lives of ordinary people, and to develop a spirit of service through scholarship among our students. Through our Human Project, the UFS seeks to connect the teaching and research of the university to the improvement of human lives. Our scholarship of service, through a myriad projects and initiatives, makes the vital connections between campus and communities through the production and dissemination of knowledge. In these pursuits, the university makes human reconciliation one of the foundations of its mission.
UFS at a glance
• 111 years old
• over 31 000 students
• over 4 000 faculty and support staff
• 3 campuses
• 50 satellite campuses
• 7 faculties
• over 100 departments
Read a detailed list of facts and figures.
