THE CRIPPLED HIGHER EDUCATION: THE POLITICAL CHOICE OF THE ANC

South Africa’s higher education crisis is not an accident. It is not merely administrative incompetence. It is a political choice. When institutions meant to liberate the poor are hollowed out by patronage networks, that is not dysfunction; it is capture. Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), created to arm young South Africans with skills for economic freedom, have too often become bureaucratic fortresses insulated, centralised, and disturbingly comfortable with mediocrity.

A nation with one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world cannot afford a skills system that produces paperwork instead of work. Yet billions circulate through accreditation schemes, consultancy contracts, and governance structures that seem more responsive to insiders than to unemployed graduates in townships and villages. Let us be honest: this is not a transformation. It is redistribution upward.

The language of empowerment has been appropriated. The rhetoric of “skills development” has become a shield behind which networks of influence operate. Meanwhile, universities and TVET colleges struggle for resources. Students protest for survival. Graduates return home with certificates but without opportunities.

A captured skills regime cripples more than institutions; it cripples hope. And hope, once broken, is politically dangerous. If leadership appointments are driven by loyalty rather than competence, if procurement systems reward proximity to power rather than public value, then we are not witnessing reform; we are witnessing recapture. The youth of this country were not promised workshops and reports. They were promised economic justice.

Radical reform must mean more than reshuffling boards. It must mean:

• Independent forensic audits of SETA finances and contracts.
• Public disclosure of procurement beneficiaries.
• Merit-based leadership is insulated from political patronage.
• Direct accountability to students, workers, and training institutions.

Anything less is cosmetic politics. Higher education is the frontline of economic freedom. If it remains captured, inequality will deepen, frustration will escalate, and social instability will follow. A crippled higher education system does not serve the unemployed. It serves those who benefit from stagnation. South Africa must choose between protecting patronage and protecting its youth. History will judge that choice.