Abstract :
The city of Pretoria is the executive capital of the Republic of South Africa, and lies in the Transvaal province, on the high inland plateau. It is approximately 1500 km from Cape Town in the South, and 600 km from Durban on the East coast. The altitude of 1400m (4500 ft) ensures a moderate climate. The University of Pretoria was founded in 1908 as a section of the Transvaal University College, and formally became the University of Pretoria (UP) in 1930, with Afrikaans as the medium of teaching. (Afrikaans developed from 17th century Dutch because of geographical isolation, and is today a separate, modern European language with its own grammar and literature. It is spoken as a first language by about 3.5 million South Africans). The student body at UP currently numbers about 22 000.
