Minister celebrates gains in university access since Apartheid

University and college students will reach nearly a million this year, says Blade Nzimande

South Africa’s higher education minister told a parliamentary debate this week of the progress successive post-Apartheid governments have made in bringing university access to the country’s poor and previously disadvantaged groups.

Addressing a joint sitting of parliament on 14 February, Blade Nzimande said that Black university students have increased from 49 per cent in 1994 to 79 per cent in 2021, and that 60 per cent of university students are women.