As the 2023 academic year approaches, it has become more apparent that thousands of matriculants in the country find themselves in desperate situations, as many of them face rejections from Public Universities that are unable to meet the demand for space.
More than 830 000 new learners have recently passed matric this past year, and concerns have been raised over how many of them will be able to access tertiary institutions throughout the country.
The student union says it is concerned about the lack of capacity from higher education to absorb qualifying learners, as some students who qualify are still yet to be placed in tertiary institutions.
While discussing the issue in more detail, the student movement’s spokesperson, Asive Dlanjwa says the problem is likely to worsen and add to the youth unemployment rate if it remains unaddressed.
“In universities, there are only 169 000 spaces available and yet we've got obviously 220 000 qualifying applicants. This is very concerning to us for many reasons. One of them being the fact that our institutions are not going to be able to accommodate them and we also know that they will also not have fine accommodation in the workplace”
Recent media reports indicate that the University of Witwatersrand received well over 100,000 applications while there were 6,000 first-year places available. Meanwhile, there were 8,500 places available at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), but 250,000 applicants have already applied.
For first-year students, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has roughly 10,500 openings, although thousands of applications have also been received. The University of Cape Town received 51,000 applications for first-year, white there are only 4,200 spaces available.
