Social scientists would be hard-pressed to find a better lens into identity, privilege and race in post-apartheid South Africa than the University of Cape Town’s admissions policy debate. One of the many discussion points it has raised is that of a black middle-class yearning to redefine being black.
South African universities have become, wrongly so, some argue, places where issues of inequality, poverty and the redress of decades of apartheid come to a head. In January this year, when Gloria Sekwena, a 47-year-old mother of two, was killed in a stampede of students and parents hoping to gain last-minute admission to the University of Johannesburg, it highlighted again that university education is still viewed by most as the sole route out of poverty toward economic prosperity.
Higher education minister Blade Nzimande said, after the incident, “The problems of applications for admissions are symptomatic of a larger challenge. Universities alone cannot, nor should they, cater for all post-school education. This annual crisis requires that we change the widely held perception by most South Africans that universities are the only acceptable option for post-school studies.”
