As someone who has watched this cycle repeat itself year after year, I find it increasingly difficult to accept that we still treat this as a temporary crisis rather than a structural one. The numbers are no longer warning signs; they are evidence of a system that has outgrown its physical limits.
The Background: Demand Has Outpaced the Model
Our public universities were never designed to absorb this level of demand. Most campuses were built decades ago, for a smaller, more exclusive student population. Since then, enrolments have surged, but lecture halls, residences, laboratories, and academic staff numbers have not kept pace.
The result is a bottleneck at the very point where opportunity should widen.
- The University of Johannesburg received close to 700,000 applications for roughly 10,500 places.
- Walter Sisulu University had nearly 400,000 applications for under 13,000 places.
- Even highly selective institutions like UCT, Stellenbosch, and Wits face application volumes that vastly exceed capacity.
These figures make one thing clear: we cannot build campuses fast enough to solve this problem. Even if funding were unlimited, which it is not, bricks-and-mortar expansion takes years, while demand grows annually. Persisting with a purely contact-based model under these conditions is not just inefficient; it is exclusionary.
The Personal Reality Behind the Numbers
Behind every rejected application is a young person whose life trajectory is altered. Many will sit at home for a year or more, hoping for a second chance. Some will never return to formal study at all. For families who have sacrificed deeply to get a child to matric, this is not an abstract policy issue - it is devastating. We must also be honest: the current system disproportionately harms students from poorer and rural backgrounds. Those who can afford private colleges, gap years, or international options find alternatives. Those who cannot are left behind. If access to higher education is truly a national priority, then scale matters. And scale requires rethinking the model itself.
The Way Forward: Online Is Not a Compromise - It’s a Strategy
Online and blended learning should no longer be treated as a fallback or an inferior option. Properly designed, it is one of the few realistic ways to expand access without lowering standards.
Embracing online studying means:
- Decoupling learning from physical space, allowing one lecturer to reach thousands rather than hundreds.
- Reducing infrastructure pressure, from lecture halls to student accommodation.
- Giving working students, rural learners, and caregivers real flexibility to participate in higher education.
- Scaling scarce skills training in areas like accounting, IT, engineering theory, and business studies.
This is not theoretical. Globally, leading universities already offer high-quality online degrees with rigorous assessment, strong student support, and credible outcomes. South Africa has the intellectual capital to do the same - what has been lacking is institutional urgency.
What Needs to Change
To make this work, we need deliberate action:
Policy clarity from government that online degrees are a core part of the public higher education strategy, not a side project.Investment in digital infrastructure, particularly data access and devices for low-income students.Training and incentives for academics to design high-quality online courses, not just record lectures.Employer buy-in, so that online qualifications are judged by outcomes, not delivery mode.
Conclusion: A Necessary Shift
South Africa cannot educate its way into the future using yesterday’s structures alone. The demand is too great, the consequences of inaction too severe.
Online studying is not about replacing universities; it is about extending their reach. It is about recognising that talent is evenly distributed, even when campus space is not.
If we are serious about access, equity, and economic growth, then embracing online education is no longer optional. It is the only scalable, credible way forward.
