Our house is on fire: The economic cost of letting learning fail

The disclosure that South Africa’s department of higher education and training (DHET) allocated R210m to expenses such as catering, travel and venues in the past financial year is, on the surface, a governance failure that demands scrutiny. Yet, for seasoned observers of the nation’s socioeconomic landscape, this fiscal embarrassment is merely the smoke emitting from a far more critical fire: the structural failure of educational capacity.

The real crisis that needs our attention is not the quantum of wasteful expenditure, but the system’s inability to deliver quality, timely – and relevant – education to the many thousands of students who enrol each year. What this means in practice is that our education system is failing to generate the high-value human capital essential for economic expansion.

Here are some other numbers that tell the story of this systemic crisis: only 28.3% of the 2019 first-year cohort for three-year degrees completed their studies on schedule, representing a substantial capital loss on initial investment and a failure to capture human potential.

Longitudinal data is even more troubling: a mere 5% of school starters ultimately secure a university degree within five years. This represents an acute bottleneck in the critical skills pipeline necessary to power sectors demanding advanced technical or managerial expertise.

Even when students do succeed in making it through the system, the disconnect between education and the labour market is concerning, contributing to a youth unemployment rate hovering around 45%, a rate that paradoxically includes a growing number of graduates lacking practical, work-integrated competencies.

This dysfunction is exacerbated by core resource issues: students face delays in funding disbursement, a persistent on-campus housing crisis and a lack of infrastructural support, all of which fuel attrition and social instability.

From patronage to performance

To address this systemic decay, the focus must shift from political patronage to performance and efficiency, guided by three pillars of radical reform.

The immediate requirement is to enforce strict merit-based appointments and implement rigorous performance contracts across all levels of the DHET and associated institutions. Merit isn’t elitist, it’s oxygen! This must be coupled with the professionalisation of critical functions, including finance, procurement and human resources, to close avenues for leakage. Accountability cannot remain confined to reports that “gather dust”; it must be codified through service dashboards publishing monthly statistics, payment cycle times and detailed debt placement information.

Second, the current funding model incentivises enrolment, not completion. A paradigm shift is required to pay for success, not seats. Funding mechanisms can be adjusted to reward degree completion and academic success. Providing financial support upon graduation, perhaps through bank-guaranteed loan structures or salary-sacrifice repayment models, rather than exclusively at admission, would create a powerful institutional incentive to invest in student retention and quality delivery.

Finally, we need to reprioritise strategic investment to target key challenges, including infrastructure, curricula and human capital. This requires shifting capital from banquets to books, bandwidth and physical capacity. For example, let’s solve the student housing crisis through a bold, public-private partnership national pipeline to create beds and facilities with clear, 24-month delivery timelines.

Universities and TVETs can also design for employability by integrating real work-integrated learning much more aggressively into their curricula and by focusing curriculum development on high-demand skills (STEM, management and problem-solving). The aim is to graduate individuals who are not just theoretically literate but also immediately employable assets for the public and private sector.

To enable all of this,we also need to protectfrontline staff, teachers and support staff. This means increasing the number of well-compensated lecturers and professional staff while capping and centralising non-core expenses to ensure every rand is spent on teaching and student services.

Zero tolerance

While it’s easy to point fingers at those in power, accountability ultimately rests with all of us. Corruption and systemic failure persist because they are, in some way, tolerated. We cannot afford to tolerate a situation where our youth are deprived of jobs and opportunities. We must stand up and demand that our political leaders, regardless of party affiliation, prioritise and deliver on these concrete reforms.

Education is both a private and a public good. While it is expensive to run universities – and fees must reflect the cost of quality delivery – the ultimate solution is not defunding, but reorienting government spending, demanding accountability and leveraging the private sector through internships and apprenticeship programmes.

The urgency for reform is acute, as the number of bachelor’s passes rises year on year and demand for quality tertiary education surges.

The R210m catering scandal is a warning flare. Let us heed it, not by talking about the smoke, but by urgently confronting and extinguishing the slow-burning fire of capacity failure that threatens the socioeconomic future of South Africa. The success of every learner, and the growth of our nation, depends on it.

Jon Foster-Pedley is the associate pro vice-chancellor for global engagement (Sub-Saharan Africa) at the University of Reading and dean of Henley Business School Africa.

_{Top image: Freepik.com.}