Parliamentary suspicion and underlying Afrophobia are putting South Africa's universities at risk, discouraging international academics and students. This threatens the country's higher education goals, undermines diversity, and narrows the intellectual horizons of future graduates.

In February 2026, Minister of Higher Education and Training Buti Manamela stood before a joint sitting of parliamentary portfolio committees and delivered a statement that should have settled the matter.

Foreign nationals constituted approximately 12% of permanent academic staff at South African public universities, he said. That had remained stable over many years. The number of South African academics had grown significantly in the same period.

"There is therefore," the minister said plainly, "no evidence of systematic displacement of South Africans in permanent academic posts."

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And yet the debate refuses to die.

The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training issued a media statement warning universities "not to misuse internationalisation as a reason for ignoring SA's immigration and labour laws". The minister indicated that it was difficult to determine whether institutions were "bypassing" the law by employing foreign nationals "in roles that are not critical or scarce".

So which is it? Either we have the data, in which case the minister's opening statement holds, or we do not, in which case the alarm being raised is prematurely, at best, and in a way that is inflammatory, at worst.

A numbers game that obscures the real question

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