Higher education institutions found wanting on employment equity

An inspection by the department of employment and labour has revealed 91% of higher education institutions were non-compliant with contentious employment equity legislation during the 2025/26 financial year.

Addressing parliament’s higher education portfolio committee on Wednesday, the department’s statutory and advocacy services acting chief director, advocate Michael Msiza, said the department completed 1,948 inspections during the period covering April to March.

Of the 1,948 inspections completed, 181 were found to be compliant and 1,767 were non-compliant.

Msiza said the department has allowed the institutions to prepare themselves to put systems in place to implement and monitor their employment equity plans because “soon we will be cracking the whip to ensure compliance with the laws of the country”.

This comes as a recent report by the Solidarity Research Institute, in collaboration with the Free Market Foundation, estimated annual compliance costs with broad-based black economic empowerment at R149bn-R290bn, equivalent to 2% to 4% of the country’s GDP of R7.3-trillion.

The Employment Equity Amendment Act, which allows the labour minister to set strict, sector-specific numerical racial targets, has drawn sharp criticism, with some businesses and opposition parties condemning it as unconstitutional.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the legislation as a vital and constitutional tool to correct systemic inequalities.

Business group Sakeliga had called on its more than 12,000 members to defy the act, which came into effect on January 1 2025, dismissing it as irrational, harmful and unconstitutional, and calling for it to be scrapped.

Msiza warned that at the rate higher education institutions were implementing transformation, “this country may not be transformed”.

“Institutions of higher education are centres of excellence, skills development, research and scholarship, and talent identification. Therefore there is no excuse that they do not have qualified candidates within [their ecosystem],” Msiza said.

The department’s director of employment equity, Dr Ntsoaki Mamashela, said the rise in the number of foreigners at institutions of higher learning, especially at senior and top levels, was worrying.

“Given the high level of unemployment, one wonders what skills foreign nationals are bringing that do not exist in South Africa. Universities produce graduates, but they seem not able to absorb their own products. We cannot fail in our statutory obligation and hide behind internationalisation,” Mamashela said.

The department of higher education and training revealed earlier this year that foreigners accounted for less than 8% of staff employed at South Africa’s universities.

Presenting to parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education and training in February, the department said audited data from the higher education management information system showed in 2024 “RSA staff” made up to 92.26% of the total workforce, while “foreign staff” accounted for 7.74%.

Most foreigners are employed in teaching and research roles. The presentation noted that “82.89% of full-time foreign staff are instructional/research professionals” while others work in administration, technical and support positions.

The department stressed foreigners contribute to “critical scarce skills” in the system, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Universities South Africa has been approached for comment, which will be added once received.