Education & bursaries
Support for students from the Paarl area entering accredited tertiary study.
About the bursary programmePicture: Athlone Institute (AIBPROF) website archive, via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
Athlone Institute Paarl
1926 → 2026The next hundred years. Hope in action.
Five Paarl congregations built a school and a teachers’ college for children the state would not teach. A century on, the Trust still awards bursaries, keeps the community’s record, and carries that work into its second century.
Bursary ceremony 2013 · 5288 — Athlone Institute (AIBPROF) website archive, via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
Hope in action
- 100
- years of educational intervention1926 – 2026
- 5
- founding churchesPaarl, 1926
- 40
- parishioners who pledged their propertyas security for the loan
- 1,500+
- students supported by the bursary fundsince 1998
Figures drawn from published reporting on the Institute and its bursary programme; each is listed with its source on the references page.
Heritage & archive
Founding records, registers, photographs and programmes, catalogued and searchable.
Search the archivePicture: Athlone Institute (AIBPROF) website archive, via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
Community
The churches, schools and families whose collective effort built the Institute.
Our communityPicture: Athlone Institute (AIBPROF) website archive, via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
A century in pictures
Paarl, and the world the Institute has worked in
These photographs show Paarl and its churches, streets and music life — not the Institute’s own buildings or people. Every picture names its photographer and licence. Family photographs and scans are welcome.
Where it all started
The whole story
1926
Five churches. One vision.
In a town where higher education was closed to them, five Paarl congregations decided to build the door themselves.
Read this chapterPicture: ECSequeira, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
1926
£5,000, a bicycle and a dream
The founding story the community has carried for a century — and what can and cannot yet be proved.
Read this chapterPicture: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
1926 onwards
Why "Athlone"?
A name borrowed from an Earl, and what a community did with it.
Read this chapterPicture: ECSequeira, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
1926 – 2026
One hundred years of the Athlone Institute
The centenary is a chance to gather what has been scattered: records, photographs, names and memories. If your family has a connection to the Institute, we would like to hear from you.
Fearless and Faithful
Latest news
All news5 September 2026
Centenary programme announced
The Institute begins preparations to mark one hundred years of service to education in Paarl.
22 August 2026
Bursary applications for the coming academic year
Application forms for the Institute's tertiary bursary programme are available from participating churches and by email.
15 August 2026
Building Athlone Institute Paarl’s second century
From five churches and forty parishioners who mortgaged their homes, to an ecosystem of schools, music, media and care — a reflection on the Institute’s first century and the work ahead.