Johannesburg – There were 205 819 more female students studying in South Africa’s universities in 2019 than there were males, data from Council for Higher Educations (CHE) show. The CHE’s VitalStats, Public Higher Education, 2019 covers the period 2014 to 2019.
The data reveal that there were 564 784 women enrolled in institutions of higher learning in 2014 – a figure that jumped to 640 333 in 2019.
In comparison, the male population at universities grew at a slower pace in the five years under review – increasing from 404 365 to 434 514.
There was a total of 1 074 912 in the country’s higher education system in 2019. The data also show that there has been a big uptick of black students enrolling at universities while the white student population has declined every year in the five years surveyed.
The number of black students increased from 679 800 in 2014 to 830 797 in 2019. White students decreased from 166 172 to 126 755 in the same period.
The coloured student population has held steady in the period under review, increasing from 60 716 to 62 362, while the number of Indian students decreased from 53 611 to 43 330.
Unisa continues to have the highest enrolment in the country with 342 797 students studying through the institution in 2019. Excluding Unisa, UJ had the biggest enrolment followed by Walter Sisulu University and Nelson Mandela University.
Ntokozo Bhengu, the spokesperson for CHE, said: “Vital- Stats affords the general public as well as higher education role players, particularly researchers and decision makers, a broad view of the sector.”
While the data show most students are by far female and black, staff complement at universities, particularly senior management, is largely white and male. Black staff are largely fulfilling administrative roles.
In 2014, there were 786 black workers at senior management, 17 685 at academic level and 32 204 at administrative level. In the same period, there were 1 241 white people at senior management, 24 652 at academic level and 14 345 as administrative staff.
The gap closed somehow in 2019 with black people increasing to 1 063 at senior management level compared to 1 290 of their white peers. By the end of 2019, there were more black academics in universities than white (24 922 black and 22 077 white).
Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande last year released a report that found white and Indian males and females are still overrepresented in university instructional and research staff.
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