Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University
public university in Pretoria North, Gauteng, South Africa
Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU; Afrikaans: Sefatho Makgatho Universiteit vir Gesondheidswetenskappe), formerly known as Medical University of South Africa (MEDUNSA), is a public medical university in Ga-Rankuwa, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Its current incarnation was formed on 1 January 2015. It is named after South African ANC leader Sefako Makgatho.
History
The Medical University of South Africa (MEDUNSA) was established in 1976 to provide medical education to black students, who were restricted from attending most medical schools in South Africa by the Apartheid government, with a few exceptions at segregated non-white-only medical schools.
The seat of the university is located at Ga-Rankuwa. The name change from MEDUNSA to Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU) was one of the causes of the riots in August 2014. From 2005 to 2015, the university was a campus of the University of Limpopo, but it was separated following a review of the merger. The launch on 14 April 2015 was attended by President Jacob Zuma and Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande, with the president delivering the keynote address.
Ranking and Reputation
SMU has shown an upward trend in various national and global university rankings from 2020, consistently improving its position.
Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings
Source:
The Times Higher Education (THE) ranking is an annual publication that provides a global ranking of universities based on performance metrics across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry income, and international outlook.
“Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University” enters the record as public university in Pretoria North, Gauteng, South Africa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sefako, Makgatho and Health can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19843419. VIAF identifies the subject as 125019019. The Library of Congress control number is no2003113686. Authority coordinates are -25.617, 28.017. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015, 1976, 2014 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.