QUALIFIED, BUT UNEMPLOYED: DHET admits it cannot track which degrees lead to graduate unemployment
The Department of Higher Education is spending billions in public funds without tracking which university degrees lead straight to the unemployment line. While this happens, the unemployment rate among graduates has grown from 10.3% to 12.4% in seven months.
The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in South Africa has admitted to its inability to track which university degrees lead to graduate unemployment, despite spending billions on public funds. This has resulted in a growing unemployment rate among graduates, which has increased from 10.3% to 12.4% in just seven months.
The DHET lacks a longitudinal administrative tracking system to link specific university degrees to post-graduation employment outcomes, making it difficult to identify qualifications that consistently contribute to high graduate unemployment rates. This lack of visibility into the return on investment of higher education subsidies leaves policy planning reliant on delayed, periodic surveys rather than live labour-market evidence.
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