{
  "id": 12584030,
  "title": "Scarcity is changing the transformation debate",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/scarcity-is-changing-the-transformation-debate",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-07T08:32:17.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Citizen",
    "slug": "the-citizen",
    "url": "https://www.citizen.co.za/business/scarcity-is-changing-the-transformation-debate/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "South Africa's ongoing debate over the recruitment of foreign academics is often viewed as a struggle for limited university positions. Professor Joseph Sekhampu, the Chief Director of the NWU Business School, raises a more pressing question: what academic skills will the outcomes of today's hiring decisions bestow upon the next generation? The foundation for this inquiry lies in the economic stagnation that has gripped the nation. As of the second half of 2026, South Africa's unemployment rate stood at 33.6%, a statistic that does not necessarily indicate whether a foreign professor has replaced a South African candidate, but it does provide a glimpse into the economic landscape in which students and aspiring academics vie for limited professional opportunities. Universities have seen an expansion of programs and ambitions, yet the economy has failed to generate a comparable influx of job opportunities. Consequently, transformation has transformed from a strategy for broadening the country's capacity to generate more opportunities into a contest determining who will be allocated existing opportunities based on identity rather than merit. Professor Sekhampu delineates the difference between localization and development. Localization refers to the assignment of existing positions to specific individuals, while development pertains to the creation of additional positions in the future. A nation can enhance representation within a fixed number of roles without making substantial progress in fostering the academic framework that could generate more roles, bolster research initiatives, and cultivate a larger pool of qualified scholars. This does not negate the necessity for accountability. Foreign hires can indeed lead to genuine displacement, and institutions should justify international appointments when domestic expertise is available. Public universities are also duty-bound to foster local academic talent instead of perpetually relying on imported knowledge. South Africa already invests in several academic development programs such as the New Generation of Academics Programme, the Nurturing Emerging Scholars Programme, the University Staff Doctoral Programme and the Future Professors Programme. Hence, the crux of the issue is not whether the country is cultivating domestic academic expertise. Instead, it is how these investments can be augmented by the expertise already accessible in the global academic realm. Each appointment can imbue capability beyond a single position. A foreign professor may mentor South African scholars, foster research capacity, and facilitate connections between colleagues and students on international academic platforms. While candidates compete for one appointment, the expertise introduced into that role can permeate far beyond the individual holding it. Therefore, transformation should be evaluated by two interrelated outcomes: who occupies academic positions currently, and whether universities are augmenting the domestic capability essential for filling more of these positions down the line. If representation advances faster than the academic system's ability to reproduce expertise, immediate gains may entail long-term drawbacks. These drawbacks could manifest as less rigorous doctoral supervision, diminished research capacity, and fewer prospects for young academics to acquire specialized knowledge. The unrecruited expertise remains elusive and challenging to quantify. Accountability is a one-sided affair. A university may be called upon today to justify an international appointment, yet it is seldom required to account for the expertise it decided not to incorporate. The first decision garners visible beneficiaries and a receptive political audience. Conversely, the cost of the second is diffused across future students, research initiatives, and academics who will never know what capabilities were missed. These costs unfold over time. Localizing an appointment instantly alters the representation narrative, providing an immediate and visible beneficiary and audience. However, fostering academic capability is a process that unfolds over generations, involving postgraduate training, supervision, publication, and institutional learning. Political pressure tends to reward what can be demonstrated in the present, while a university's developmental responsibility mandates investment that will only bear fruit years later. Professor Sekhampu warns that heightened political scrutiny is already causing universities to become more cautious about international recruitment. No formal instruction is required. Selection committees can sense the impending questions, and institutions swiftly learn which decisions are more defensible, even if the policy remains unchanged. The repercussions of this caution may only become apparent in the distant future, when the expertise not recruited today becomes absent supervision, weaker research capacity, or undeveloped academic networks. It will be individuals who had no role in the original appointment decision who bear the brunt of these consequences. The most significant risk lies in the institutional realm. If universities prioritize what the politically charged climate will permit over the capabilities they must cultivate, they risk perpetuating the very stagnation they aim to alleviate. The challenge, therefore, is to strive for both representation and capacity building concurrently, and to assess each decision by its impact on both access in the present and expertise in the future.",
  "summary": "Universities make the distinction between localisation and development especially important because academics do more than fill jobs.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}