Parliamentary suspicion and underlying Afrophobia are endangering South Africa's universities, discouraging international academics and students. This jeopardizes the country's higher education goals, undermining diversity and limiting the intellectual horizons of future graduates.
In February 2026, Minister of Higher Education and Training Buti Manamela stood before a joint meeting of parliamentary portfolio committees and made a statement that should have resolved the matter.
About 12% of the permanent academic staff in South African public universities are foreign nationals, he said. He had been stable for many years. There was a significant increase in the number of South African academics during the same period.
“Therefore,” the minister said bluntly, “there is no evidence of systematic displacement of South Africans into permanent academic positions.”
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And yet the debate refuses to end.
The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training issued a media statement warning universities not to “abuse internationalization by ignoring SA's immigration and labor laws”. The minister indicated that it is difficult to determine whether institutions are “circumventing” the law by employing foreign nationals “in roles that are not important or rare”.
So which one is it? Either we have the data, in which case the Minister's initial statement is valid, or we do not, in which case raising the alarm is premature, at best, and kind of inflammatory, at worst.
A game of numbers that obscures the real question
SA has an unemployment crisis…