EDITORIAL | Can tertiary institutions avoid registration chaos of previous years?

With matric results out and schools reopened, the focus now shifts to higher education.

It’s a sector that is a crucial link if South Africa is going to address the skills gap — a requisite step to tackling the country’s poverty, inequality and unemployment problems.

Some 656,000 pupils passed matric at a level that qualifies them for admission to universities and vocational training colleges, but those institutions never have enough places for first-year students. This leads to a rush for space with thousands of young people lining up outside the institutions either to register or, in many cases, for walk-in applications.

The last-minute rush of desperate students and parents competing for space often blows up into protests, which are often violent and on occasion deadly.

It was therefore important that higher education and training minister Buti Manamela convened a “strategic session” over the weekend for the post-school education and training sector to prepare for the 2026 academic year.

The event was attended by leaders and representatives of tertiary institutions who asked the question: is our PSET system fit for purpose in the context of the pressures we now face — and the future we must build?

According to Manamela, the discussion was not abstract, but a sober, practical interrogation of capacity, co-ordination and execution.

He reflected on the fact that the post-school education and training system currently has about 535,000 funded and planned spaces across universities, TVET colleges, CET colleges, skills programmes and workplace-based learning.

“This gap between success and capacity is real, structural and longstanding. The task before us is therefore not to explain it away, but to manage it responsibly, to expand pathways deliberately, and to prevent confusion, despair or false expectations,” he said, addressing journalists.

The minister sought to clarify what he called a persistent misunderstanding, that a bachelor’s pass does not guarantee admission to a university or to a specific programme.

Universities apply faculty- and programme-specific requirements, including subject combinations, minimum symbols and selection processes where demand exceeds capacity. This is where learners and families experience disappointment — it is often not because of failure, but because of misaligned expectations.

The government’s responsibility therefore, is to ensure that learners understand, early and clearly, the full range of credible post-school pathways, not only the most visible ones. In managing the gap between passes and pathways, the department is strengthening co-ordinated enrolment planning across the system, informed by matric trends and labour-market intelligence.

While Manamela noted that institutions across the sector have undertaken extensive preparations for the 2026 academic year, he also acknowledged that not every learner will secure immediate placement in their first choice. However, every learner must be able to find a credible and supported pathway into learning, skills development and productive participation in society.

As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

As university registration for the new academic year opens over the next few weeks, it is hoped the chaos of previous years can be avoided, let alone stranded students sleeping on the streets.