African universities have been warned that a sharp rise in the continent’s youth population will put an even greater strain on its higher education system, with institutions being urged to collaborate more to address access problems.

South Africa’s public universities face a severe capacity crisis where high application numbers vastly outstrip available places. Its universities are subject to caps on how many students they can accept, a funding model that has come under criticism in recent years.

Speaking at an event organised by the Centre for Global Higher Education, the University of Johannesburg’s vice-chancellor, Letlhokwa George Mpedi, noted that it is estimated that between 2020 and 2040, the number of young Africans completing secondary or tertiary education is expected to more than double, from 103 million to 240 million, according to Unesco. 

Meanwhile, unemployment figures in South Africa for those aged between 15 and 34 currently stand at 45.8 per cent, rising to 60.9 per cent for those aged 15 to 24.

ɫ��ֱ��

This is already playing out in application rates, with Johannesburg receiving  for the 2026 academic year.

Mpedi said that “no single institution, however well resourced, can absorb the scale of demand our continent demographics present”, and that African universities should work together to establish “quality driven higher education systems built through shared standards and cross-border collaboration rather than 54 fragmented national responses to the same demographic wave”.

ɫ��ֱ��

However, he warned this should not just pave the way for “uncritical expansion” as this would produce “a crisis of quality behind rising enrolment”, adding that universities cannot boost places “without providing adequate support and proper infrastructure”.

Mpedi said that his university last year launched “UJ Digital”, which provides online courses and postgraduate diplomas to remote students, without requiring them to be enrolled on campus. The system enrolled more than 20,000 digital learners in its first year. 

“I do not raise this as evidence that the access problem is solved. It is not. 20,000 learners is a meaningful start against the continental unemployment crisis measured in the tens of millions. But it demonstrates that digital inclusion done properly is a legitimate and, in many cases, the only viable pathway for some.”

He said this is where African collaboration becomes “necessary” to share lessons learnt when developing online infrastructures, “so that no single university has to rediscover these lessons alone at the cost of another cohort of excluded students”. 

ɫ��ֱ��

Overall, addressing Africa’s access challenges for higher education is not a one-off problem but something that needs to be continually monitored, he said.

“Access is a sustained condition a university must keep producing for every student it claims to save.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com