’n Historiese Perspektief op die Realisering van “CHO” van die PUK as ’n Stem uit Potchefstroom tot 2003

Abstract

From 1919 the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (PU vir CHO) in South Africa was the first tertiary institution in the country to reflect a certain character and focus in its name. The transformation in the national education structure since 1998 had a detrimental effect on the change of the name PU vir CHO which was used for decades. By 2003 this university had to submit to educational pressures that made provision for a broader unified tertiary institutional structure of education in the North West Province. Eventually, the interminable and complicated debate on the meaning and value of the “CHO” for the institution created an opportunity for negotiated questions about the “CHO-past”. Some questions were (1) where did the principle of “Christian Higher Education” originate and how did it become associated with the University (character and science); (2) did the concept of “Christian Higher Education” as “family name” develop progressively within all sciences?; (3) to what extent may the “Christian Higher Education” have been a powerful element of uncertainty, creating frustration and/ or becoming a potential isolating factor? The matter of whether a change in the institutional name and visible character was really necessary after 2003 is also questioned in some circles.
Although the way forward, with or without the “CHO”, is difficult to envisage, this debate and the questions as mentioned and as discussed in the article, mainly reflect a historical perspective and methodology. Whether the debate on the “CHO” must be continued in an informal way and how this could be continued, are also discussed briefly.