Cape Town – Akademia has acquired 105 hectares of land in the Boschenmeer area of Paarl to develop a new Afrikaans university campus in the Western Cape, as part of its broader national expansion strategy.
According to Daily Investor, the site, known as Vêrgesig, will be developed by Kanton, the same company overseeing Akademia’s R3.2 billion Pretoria campus project currently under construction in Mooiplaats, east of Pretoria.
Akademia said the Paarl development reflects its “long-term commitment to the Afrikaans language and cultural communities in the Western Cape”.
Executive director Marthinus Visser described the land purchase as “yet another important chapter in the establishment of Afrikaans university education” and said it confirms the institution’s intention “to establish a permanent academic home in the Western Cape”.
The Paarl campus is expected to eventually accommodate around 3,000 students. Visser said, “The dream is to build a beautiful campus at the foot of the Wemmershoek Mountains with all the necessary facilities for a residential student campus.”
The expansion follows construction that began in January 2026 on Akademia’s new Pretoria campus, a 220-hectare development designed to accommodate 5,000 undergraduate and 1,500 postgraduate students, reported Newsday.
The Pretoria campus will include student residences, a chapel, an amphitheatre, a large student centre and new academic faculties, including engineering, nursing and optometry. Akademia said the campus is being designed to operate as independently as possible, with extensive water storage and utility infrastructure.
Professor Gawie du Toit said the new Paarl campus would strengthen Afrikaans “as a language of science and as a medium of teaching, learning, and vocation”.
Kanton CEO Henk Schalekamp said the Pretoria project was funded entirely through private investment, student fees and donations, without government funding.
He said the model allows Akademia to remain independent “of state funding and demographic engineering”, adding that “capital serves the institution’s cultural mission rather than dictating its ideology”.
Akademia’s temporary Paarl campus has already welcomed its first full-time students this year, while the permanent Pretoria campus is expected to open in 2028.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
