Dismantling the Public University?: Tertiary Education through Comparative Lenses

Gillian Hart

South African student protests are hardly surprising. Since 2000 the ANC government has devoted a low and declining share of GDP to tertiary education, despite large increases in student numbers. 

More surprising are patterns that emerge from comparing this erosion of public higher education with tendencies in other regions of the world. First, over the same period, the share of GDP going to higher education has actually been increasing in a number of other middle-income countries.

Second, although defying the positive trends set by its middle-income peers, ironically and tragically South Africa is emulating the state of California, where a comprehensive system of public education has been systematically dismantled over the past several decades. What makes the California story all the more salient for South Africa is how they have converged on a similar path of eroding public higher education and intensifying race-class disparities, despite coming from dramatically different directions.