It was established in 1982 to serve the inhabitants of the Venda bantustan, however, the student body at Univen never consisted of Venda students only, student from all over the Northern Transvaal attended the Institution. After the end of apartheid and the re-integration of the bantustans into South Africa, Univen student body were drawn from all over South Africa. With the South African government's programme of tertiary education reform in the new millennium, Univen became a "comprehensive university", offering both theoretically oriented and practically oriented courses.
Campus
The University of Venda has one main Campus in Thohoyandou. The Campus houses all seven faculties of the institution namely
The campus also houses the Art Gallery, which has a display of carvings, paintings and clay pots made by both students and local community members. Furthermore, the campus has a full-time Sport Center that is used for indoor Sports as well as other recreational activities such as drama and dance. The main campus houses nine of the eleven official residences, namely Bernard Ncube, Carousel, F3, F4, F5, Lost City Boys, Lost City Girls, Mango Groove, Riverside and Prefab.
The representative student body of the University of Venda is made up an 84-member parliament styled structure. it is led by a 14-member cabinet also known as the SRC executive. The assembly can be further divided into three: the first sub-division is the cabinet that is led by the president, then the deputy president, the secretary-general, the deputy secretary general, there are nine ministerial portfolios as followed; Ministry of Campus and off Campus Housing, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, Bursaries and Projects, Ministry of Gender and people with Disabilities, Ministry of Health, Safety and Security, Ministry of Information, External Affairs and International Relations, Ministry of Legal, Policies, and Constitutional Affairs, Ministry of Religion, Culture, Arts and Heritage, Ministry of Sports and Recreation, and with the equivalence of a ministry there is the Chairperson of the Post Graduate Council. the second sub-division of the SRA is the Structures, these are made up of four-person executives of the Disabled Student Council, the Housing Representative Council, the Sports, Recreation and Cultural Committee and the School Councils from all seven faculties of the University. The third sub-division is the parliament which is composed of committees under each ministerial position. Each member of the SRC is forwarded to parliament by a student formation they belong to except the third sub-division of the Student Representative Council who campaign independently. the Speaker of Parliament is voted in on the first sitting of Parliament by the house. the student parliament sits four times a year, once each quarter of the year. The Univen SRA is composed of members from different formations, the recognized student formations on campus are: AZAPO Student Convention, Democratic Alliance Student Organization, Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command, Pan-Africanist Student Movement of Azania, South African Student Congress and the Student Christian Organization. Each organization contests in the general elections to deploy members to the SRA, the term of office is one year, the period begins after annual election that are held during late September or early October. The current head of the SRA is acting President Miss Nokuthula Mabuza after the suspension of the president in the beginning of the second semester.
