UNITEC Institute of Technology

Unitec Institute of Technology (Māori: Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka) is the largest institute of technology in Auckland, New Zealand. 16,844 students study programmes from certificate to postgraduate degree level (levels 1 to 9) across a range of subjects.

The main campus is situated in Mt Albert while a secondary Waitākere campus is situated in Henderson and there are various pop-ups throughout the North Shore. It also offers programs overseas.

Unitec was founded as Carrington Technical Institute in 1976 on the Mt Albert site on Carrington road, which has 55 hectares of grounds. The area on which Unitec’s main campus is located was formerly home to the Whau Lunatic Asylum, later known as Carrington Hospital. The hospital building (Building 1) is an imposing brick Italianate–Romanesque structure, located at the northern end of the Unitec Campus. The hospital building was the largest in New Zealand when it was built in the 1860s. The hospital was decommissioned during the early 1990s, and the building is now part of Unitec.

The name changed to Carrington Polytechnic in 1987 and then to “Unitec Institute of Technology” in 1994. Unitec applied for University status in 1999, but the Government ruled, somewhat controversially, in 2005 that Unitec did not meet the academic criteria of a university and would remain an Institute of Technology.

In 2006, Unitec opened its Waitakere Campus in the centre of Henderson, West Auckland. The campus is a joint development with the former Waitakere City Council and includes the new Waitākere Central Library. Unitec’s Waitakere campus offers introductory computing, community development, and nursing courses.