South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis: a wake-up call for universities - IOL

In facing the looming challenges of youth unemployment and underemployment, South African universities have an opportunity—not only to adapt curriculum and instruction but to shape the future and empower the next generation of leaders. Now is the time for educational institutions to redefine the metrics of success and take decisive steps to ensure that they are not merely producing graduates but revolutionising how we understand and practice education.

South Africa's high and rising youth unemployment (StatsSA, 2026) is not merely an economic statistic. It is a profound test of the country's post-1994 promise, and of the institutions entrusted with preparing its future.

Every unemployed young person represents more than a lost opportunity. It is a missed contribution to the economy, a lost chance to develop skills, a potential crime statistic, and a reminder that education must do more than transfer knowledge. It must equip people to use knowledge meaningfully and productively.

Among the many structural, economic and social causes of unemployment, the role of education, particularly higher education, deserves urgent scrutiny.

As socially located institutions, universities' primary mandate should be to respond to societal needs. Unfortunately, leadership, curricula and academic skills are often out of step with economic and social demands. Too many graduates leave university with book knowledge, yet are woefully unprepared to face problems, develop solutions and create livelihoods. This is not an argument against academic or fundamental scholarship. Rather, it is a challenge to ensure that scholarship is connected to the needs of society.

When South Africa is benchmarked against countries that have built productive, competitive and thriving economies, it becomes clear that in those countries, universities are not isolated centres of learning. They are engines of innovation, skills development and thought leadership. More importantly, these higher education institutions actively cultivate partnerships with industry and policy-makers to contribute to national interests while maintaining academic integrity.

South African universities must therefore ask themselves the critical questions: What value do they bring to the national project? And how will we know?

South African public universities are funded from the national fiscus and are accountable to national priorities. The public higher education system represents a substantial national investment. The National Treasury's Budget Overview of 21 May 2025 reported R48 billion in university transfers, alongside R55 billion allocated to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme. These figures underline the scale of public commitment to higher education.

That investment carries a substantial responsibility. Universities must be financially astute, well governed, and, more importantly, must yield exponential knowledge dividends responsive to the needs of the economy. Concerns about institutional stewardship, poor management, financial misspending, unqualified academics, and the unemployability of graduates, cannot simply be dismissed.

The provocative critique of South African public higher education by economist Dawie Roodt (BusinessTech, 16 May 2025) should therefore prompt serious reflection. He raises a fundamental issue: with the substantial budget allocated to our public universities, are they delivering the kind of value that South Africa urgently needs?

For decades, academic culture has been shaped by the imperative to "publish or perish." This is the yardstick many academics are held accountable to. While research and knowledge production are important, publication cannot become the sole measure of academic excellence.

In a country like South Africa, labouring under immense social, economic and political pressures, the more pertinent questions are: Who benefits from the research? Which societal problems does it help address? What is the value of the knowledge produced? How are students being prepared to create value beyond the classroom?

Regulatory bodies such as the National Research Foundation and the Department of Higher Education should judge universities not only by the number of papers they produce, but also by the relevance of their curricula, the quality of the people they develop, and the problems those people are empowered to solve. The goal is not to replace fundamental research with applied knowledge. It is to bring the two into a more productive relationship. Knowledge should illuminate the world, and help improve it.

A recent University of KwaZulu-Natal hackathon, held in response to Youth Month, offers a practical example of this approach: learning to solve a problem.

Students from different disciplines worked together on problem briefs addressing issues South Africa cannot afford to ignore: water, food, artificial intelligence, safety and transport. With guidance on problem-solving processes and mentorship from industry-based experts, they brought the vibrancy and inventiveness of youth to developing innovative responses to complex challenges.

The most important outcome was not a winning team. There was no prize, no podium and no single winner. Every student left with something more valuable: the confidence and capability to develop a solution, and ideas with potential investment value.

That is what happens when education moves beyond the passive acquisition of knowledge and becomes an active process of creating solutions.

Merging the values of Youth Month and Mandela Month elevated the hackathon into a more profound and deeper learning experience. This translated into a nature immersion at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve, engaging with orphaned rhinos, assisting with the cleaning of animal capture pens, and joining skilled rangers on bush walks.

The nature immersion was more than an excursion. It created an opportunity to experience the interconnectedness of life and to reflect on the meaning of "ubuntu" — a humane understanding of our relationship with one another and with the natural world.

In an age dominated by artificial intelligence, social media and digital acceleration, universities must also help students recover a sense of connection, responsibility and empathy. Technological innovation without humanity is not progress.

It is time for universities to radically transform and move from observing the future to helping build it. This means designing learning experiences that develop the following literacies: problem-solving capability, not merely knowledge recall; entrepreneurial confidence, not only job-seeking competence; interdisciplinary collaboration, not isolated disciplinary thinking; industry and community engagement, not academic detachment; and ethical and sustainable judgement, not technical skill without responsibility.

When students move through a university that works this way, they leave as more than graduates. They leave as authentic scholars, people with the confidence, skills and power to take on the systemic challenges that society too often faces but fails to resolve.

Albert Einstein is credited with defining education as "what remains, once we have forgotten everything we learned at school." The deeper meaning is that education should transform the learner, not merely fill the mind with information.

South Africa needs universities that do more than produce qualifications. It needs universities that develop citizens capable of building a better and more sustainable future. This is not a choice between research and relevance, or between scholarship and employability.

The real choice is between an education system that remains satisfied with the publications it produces, and one that takes responsibility for what its graduates can contribute to society.

Publish or perish? Or learning to earn, learning to solve, and learning to sustain? This choice will be the true test of relevance.

Dr Justin Pringle is Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Civil Engineering, and Dr Rudi Kimmie is Interim Director at the Aerotropolis Institute Africa. They are both founders of "Purpose-Driven" at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.