The reported excessive and unjustifiable vice-chancellor remuneration packages are an insult to the growing precarity that a lot of staff members face in our universities.

Listen to this article 8 min Listen to this article 8 min Recently, media outlets were awash with reports of university vice-chancellors' salaries. The reports emanate from a Council on Higher Education report commissioned by the former minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dr Blade Nzimande, in 2020.

Although the report has yet to be publicly released, the results suggest that we may be facing a real crisis in the South African higher education sector. In their presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science and Innovation on 21 February 2024, the council reported that university vice-chancellors' median total cost to company packages was around R3,966,069 in 2019.

If the reported numbers are to be believed, the institution with the highest total cost to company salary appeared to be the University of Johannesburg (UJ), which was said to be sitting on R7,166,995 for its vice-chancellor's earnings in the year 2019.

The "poorest" earning vice-chancellor in the country appeared to be from the University of Venda, who was earning a "meagre" R3,033,988.

To put these reported numbers into perspective, the top six universities with the reported highest total cost to company packages for their vice-chancellors are UJ,...