While universities have eliminated the traditional barriers to access to tertiary education for the country's majority, the writer says the pressing question now is whether graduates can successfully embark on fulfilling, prosperous careers in an era being defined by technological advances.
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For three decades, South Africa's higher education transformation project has been built upon a noble and necessary objective: access. The democratic state rightly recognised that universities could no longer remain enclaves of privilege. They had to become instruments of social justice. Millions of young South Africans who would once have been excluded from higher education were given opportunities previously denied to them.
This achievement should not be underestimated. But it should no longer be mistaken for success. Indeed, one of the most uncomfortable questions confronting South African higher education today is whether we have become so obsessed with access that we have stopped asking what happens afterwards.
What happens after graduation? What happens when a young person becomes the first member of their family to earn a degree, only to discover that the labour market has no place for them? What happens when universities proudly celebrate graduation ceremonies while thousands of graduates quietly join unemployment queues? What happens when inclusion into higher education does not translate into inclusion into the economy? These questions strike at the heart of the next phase of transformation. The truth is both simple and disturbing.
Access without success is not transformation. It is merely admission. A university place is not an outcome. A degree is not an outcome. Even graduation is not an outcome. Success is the outcome. And success must mean that graduates leave university equipped to create value, secure meaningful work, participate in the economy and build prosperous lives. Anything less represents an incomplete transformation project.
For too long, higher education success has been measured through enrolments, participation rates, graduation statistics and demographic representation. These indicators remain important. But in an era defined by artificial intelligence, automation, digitalisation and profound labour market disruption, they are no longer sufficient.
A difficult truth now confronts universities. A transformed university that produces unemployed graduates is only partially transformed. This statement may be uncomfortable, but it is increasingly impossible to ignore.
South Africa's unemployment crisis remains among the worst in the world. Youth unemployment continues to exceed 60% in many categories, while graduate unemployment has become an emerging national concern. Although graduates remain more employable than those without tertiary education, possession of a qualification no longer guarantees economic participation.
This represents a profound shift. Historically, a university degree was a passport into the middle class. Today it is often merely a ticket into competition. The rules of economic participation have changed. The labour market that universities were designed to serve no longer exists.
Artificial intelligence is transforming professions. Automation is reshaping industries. Digital platforms are redefining work. Employers increasingly prioritise skills over credentials. Entire occupations are emerging while others disappear. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 predicts unprecedented changes in workplace skills requirements by 2030. Analytical thinking, technological literacy, AI competency, adaptability, resilience and continuous learning are becoming the defining capabilities of economic relevance. Yet many university curricula continue to prepare students for a world that is disappearing.
This is not a curriculum problem alone. It is a transformation problem. Universities can no longer define transformation exclusively through access. The new transformation question is this: Can our graduates thrive in the economy of the future? If the answer is uncertain, transformation remains unfinished.
The rise of artificial intelligence makes this challenge even more urgent. Much public debate focuses on whether AI will replace jobs. This is the wrong question. The more important question is whether graduates will know how to work with AI. In the coming decade, the divide that matters most may not be between rich and poor, or even between educated and uneducated. It may be between those who can effectively collaborate with intelligent technologies and those who cannot.
The emergence of AI therefore creates a new responsibility for universities. Every graduate, regardless of discipline, should possess AI literacy. Every graduate should understand data. Every graduate should be digitally fluent. Every graduate should be capable of solving complex problems in multidisciplinary environments. Every graduate should know how to learn continuously.
This is not about turning every student into a computer scientist. It is about ensuring that every graduate can remain economically relevant in a world where technological change has become relentless. Success in the twenty-first century requires far more than disciplinary expertise. The graduate of the future must be a hybrid professional. A critical thinker. A technological learner. A creative problem-solver. An entrepreneur. A collaborator. A citizen capable of navigating uncertainty.
Universities that fail to produce such graduates risk becoming institutions that prepare students for jobs that no longer exist. The implications are profound. Higher education institutions must stop treating employability as a peripheral concern located somewhere in a careers office. Graduate success must become the organising principle of the entire university.
Every curriculum decision should ask a simple question: How does this improve graduate success? Every teaching strategy should ask: How does this prepare students for a rapidly changing world? Every institutional strategy should ask: How many graduates are flourishing five years after graduation?
The real measure of transformation should not be how many students enter university. Nor should it be how many graduate. It should be how many succeed. Imagine a future in which universities publish not only graduation rates, but graduate prosperity rates. Imagine institutions being judged not simply on access statistics, but on their ability to produce economically empowered citizens. Imagine transformation measured by social mobility, entrepreneurial creation, innovation capacity and economic participation.
That would fundamentally change higher education. And perhaps it should. Because the moral purpose of higher education cannot end at the graduation stage. A graduation certificate hanging on a wall cannot feed a family. A qualification alone cannot build a career. A degree by itself cannot fulfil the promise of transformation.
The next great struggle in South African higher education is therefore not access. It is success. The first era of transformation opened the university gates. The second era must ensure that graduates can walk through those gates into lives of dignity, opportunity and prosperity. South Africa has largely solved the problem of who gets into university. The defining question of the next decade is whether universities can solve the problem of what happens after students leave. That is the unfinished business of transformation. And in an age of artificial intelligence, it may be the most important question facing higher education today.
*Paresh Soni is a Consultant and an Academic and Research Thought Leader withExtensive Private Sector and Higher Education Expertise.