1. Alumni
    • UCT’s Centre for Extra‑Mural Studies (EMS) / Summer School provides short, non‑degree courses that are open to all members of the public. In its 2024 Summer School, UCT offered courses via EMS (Extra‑Mural Studies) in subjects such as self-publishing, isiXhosa, and more.
    • These extra‑mural courses make UCT’s academic expertise accessible beyond just current students — alumni and other adult learners are very likely to participate. This represents a lifelong‑learning outreach function.
    • In addition, the 2025 Summer School (which builds on the same EMS programme) includes lectures delivered by distinguished alumni and retired academic staff, showing a bridge between alumni and community in public education.
  2. Local Community / Cape Town Residents
    The UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) has a well‑established Executive Education unit offering short, professionally oriented courses. These include leadership & management development, sustainability, industry-specific courses and more. An example, the “Executive Development Programme” is a two‑week face-to-face course for senior leaders. Another course: “Fundamentals of Community Engagement & Social Impact Leadership” (6 days, part-time) is run by UCT GSB, focused on ESG, stakeholder engagement, social impact – a professional development course.
    • The EMS Summer School itself offers non‑credit short courses for Cape Town residents (local community) regardless of their prior academic achievement, making knowledge available to the public in a community‑accessible way.
  3. Displaced People / Refugees
    • There is historical and policy‑oriented evidence that UCT engages in the education of refugees/displaced persons: UCT’s Refugee Rights Unit previously ran outreach campaigns educating refugee communities about their rights. In a report, the University documented “outreach campaigns … to educate society of refugee rights” and conducted community legal‑rights education.

The University of Cape Town’s student-led outreach organisation SHAWCO delivers education and welfare services in heavily under‑resourced communities across Cape Town — including informal settlements such as Khayelitsha, Masiphumelele, Imizamo Yethu, and others. According to SHAWCO, its mission is to address inequality through … community engagement in under‑served communities across the Cape Flats (e.g., Kensington, Khayelitsha, Masiphumelele). These areas are among those with very high socio-economic vulnerability; Masiphumelele is widely documented as a low-income, informal‑settlement area.

While not all residents of such communities are refugees, informal settlements are known to be places where many migrants and displaced people settle or pass through. A recent resilience‑study report on Cape Town notes that rapid inward migration is a key factor driving the growth of informal settlements, and that many of these communities inhabit land with precarious tenure, limited services, and very high social vulnerability.

By operating in these neighborhoods, SHAWCO’s education programmes (after‑school tutoring, mentorship, violence‑prevention workshops, legal‐rights workshops via SHAWCO Law) effectively reach populations who are socio-economically marginalized — including, by extension, migrant or displaced persons who may live in these underserved areas. This outreach thus provides meaningful educational access to communities that are often home to displaced or refugee individuals, even if SHAWCO does not exclusively label them as “refugees.” Given the well-documented presence of migrant populations in informal settlements in Cape Town, UCT’s SHAWCO-based education work does contribute to the education of displaced or at-risk community residents.