The representative body for New Zealand’s eight universities.
The New Zealand Vice-Chancellors' Committee website.
In June 1869 the Otago Provincial Council passed the Otago University Ordinance, creating the University of Otago as a corporate body with powers to grant degrees in arts, medicine, law and music. The university opened in July 1871, with a staff of three professors.
The University of New Zealand was created by Act of Parliament in September 1870 and became the examining and degree-granting body for all New Zealand university institutions.
Colleges were established in Christchurch (Canterbury College, 1873), Auckland (1883) and Wellington (Victoria University College, 1897).
On 1 January 1962 the University of New Zealand was disestablished and the four university colleges became full universities in their own right. On 1 January 1964 two new universities were created, the University of Waikato and Massey University. The University of Waikato was established to cater for the needs of the area around Hamilton, now New Zealand’s fourth largest city. Massey University in Palmerston North began life as the New Zealand Agricultural College in 1926 (renamed Massey Agricultural College in 1927).
In 1990 Lincoln University (near Christchurch in the South Island) was established, although like Massey University, it has a long history. A School of Agriculture was set up in Lincoln in 1878 and in 1896, as the renamed Canterbury Agricultural College, was given the right to award degrees through the University of New Zealand. Renamed Lincoln College in 1961, Lincoln became a constituent college of the University of Canterbury until it subsequently became a full and self-governing university.
The last university to be set up in New Zealand is the Auckland University of Technology (established in the year 2000), which like Massey and Lincoln Universities has a long history. Beginning life as the Auckland Technical School in 1895, in 1960 the secondary school and tertiary functions were separated and the Auckland Technical Institute was set up. The Institute’s name was changed to the Auckland Institute of Technology in 1989 and changed its name again on 1 January 1990 when it gained university status.
