Introduction to the Department

The Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa has a proud history of producing world-class engineers for all three of these disciplines of engineering. Most of our graduates are leaders in engineering and also top inventors and entrepreneurs in the world. 

The Department has designed and optimised our undergraduate degree programs to prepare our graduates in the best possible way for their careers – discipline specific, locally relevant, and internationally competitive. The result is that we have three specialist degrees – Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering. This assures very little competition from generalist engineers from other institutions when entering the labour market – “you know the discipline, you have experienced research and experimentation in the best possible laboratories for your career.”

A key difference in obtaining an engineering qualification from an institute like ours is that the graduate can register as a Professional Engineer (versus Professional Technologist, etc). To grasp on the differences, consult the website of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA).

Our success over many years has been proven to be a result of the quality of our lecturers and support staff (see Personnel). Lecturers in the Department are outstanding: most lecturers have PhD degrees (some lecturers have two PhD’s) or are currently pursuing PhD degrees, many are NRF (South African National Research Foundation) rated researchers and are registered Professional Engineers. We have the whole range of lecturers from very young to some close to 60 years of age; male female; racially and culturally diverse. Our lecturers are excellent lecturers, well-established researchers, innovative and constantly consulted by Government, Industry and many other institutions. A constant flow of new patents are registered by lecturers and students from our Department. Some of these are currently under development with support from the University of Pretoria and venture capital companies.

The other two components to assure outstanding achievement and quality graduates, are:

• Quality training and research laboratories; as well as a large number of Centres of Excellence in the Department (see Institutes and Centres for more information).
• Quality students at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

The Department is a strong supporter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), locally represented by the IEEE South African Section. as well as the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE). The IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineering) is the largest professional society of any discipline in the world. Members of our staff occupy key positions in the IEEE and they publish most of their research papers in IEEE Journals. Both the IEEE and the SAIEE are Voluntary Associations (VAs) of ECSA and offer Continued Professional Development (CPD) events for registered engineers.