DHET admits it cannot track which degrees lead to graduate unemployment
DHET cannot track degrees linked to graduate unemployment, highlighting a major information gap in South Africa’s higher education system as the unemployment rate among graduates climbed to 12.4% in the second quarter of 2026. Statistics South Africa said the graduate unemployment rate increased from 12.2% in the first quarter to 12.4% in the second quarter.
The disclosure has sparked questions about how effectively public money allocated to universities, student support and higher education programmes can be assessed against employment outcomes.
The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) has acknowledged that its current information systems record enrolments, qualifications and completions at public universities, but do not routinely track the subsequent labour-market status of individual graduates.
That means the department cannot currently produce a comprehensive, qualification-level picture showing which specific degrees consistently lead to stronger employment outcomes and which may be associated with higher unemployment.
Minister of Higher Education and Training Buti Manamela said linking higher education records to labour-market, tax and other administrative data would be necessary to build reliable qualification-level employment information, while also complying with data-protection requirements.
DHET graduate unemployment data gap
The issue surrounding DHET graduate unemployment emerged after parliamentary questioning about whether government tracks degrees whose graduates have unemployment rates above the national average over a five-year period.
The questions raised the issue of whether government has enough information to adjust enrolment targets, funding priorities and curriculum planning according to what happens to graduates after they leave university.
At present, DHET has data about how many students enrol, what qualifications they complete and which institutions they attend. But there is a significant difference between knowing how many students graduate and knowing what happens to those graduates afterwards.
A graduate may complete a degree, but the current system does not automatically connect that qualification to information showing whether the person finds employment, remains unemployed, changes career direction or continues studying.
Why graduate tracking matters
A comprehensive graduate tracking system could give policymakers a much clearer picture of the economic value of different qualifications.
Such a system could potentially show how long graduates take to find employment, which fields have strong demand, where unemployment persists and whether graduates are working in occupations related to their qualifications.
That information could then be used to inform university enrolment planning and public investment.
The absence of such information becomes particularly important as South Africa continues to face a combination of high overall unemployment and shortages in particular occupations.
Statistics South Africa reported that the overall official unemployment rate increased to 33.6% in Q2 2026, while the unemployment rate among graduates was considerably lower at 12.4%.
University degree employability under scrutiny
The debate around university degree employability is not an argument that degrees are unnecessary.
Instead, it raises questions about whether the higher education system is sufficiently aligned with a changing economy.
A university qualification can provide foundational knowledge, analytical ability and professional preparation. But employers may also require practical experience, technical capabilities and transferable skills that are not always captured by the title of a degree.
The World Bank recently identified a structural mismatch between the skills supplied by South Africa’s education system and the skills employers are seeking, particularly in the digital economy.
Its analysis found strong employer demand for advanced capabilities such as software development, networking and cybersecurity, while graduates are more heavily concentrated in areas including IT management and digital design.
Qualifications alone may not guarantee employment
The World Bank’s findings reinforce the argument that increasing the number of people with qualifications is not enough on its own.
Employers need workers whose skills correspond to actual vacancies.
The report called for stronger alignment between education, labour-market intelligence, funding decisions and workplace learning. It specifically recommended greater use of real-time labour-market data so that education providers can adjust programmes and investments as demand changes.
This is directly relevant to the question of university degree employability because a qualification’s value increasingly depends on both its academic content and its connection to real workplace requirements.
Graduate tracking system planned through national study
Government is not starting from zero.
Manamela said DHET is participating in the National Graduate Destination Study (NGDS) being undertaken by the Human Sciences Research Council in partnership with Universities South Africa.
The project is intended to track the economic absorption and career pathways of graduates across South Africa’s 26 public universities.
According to HSRC information reported by Daily Maverick, the study was finalised in March 2026, with project work formally beginning on 1 April 2026.
However, the study is still in its early operational phase, meaning no primary empirical findings were yet available when the report was published.
Why the new study is important
The NGDS could provide some of the information currently missing from the national system.
Instead of relying primarily on graduate surveys and periodic studies, policymakers could gain a better understanding of what graduates do after university and how their educational choices relate to employment.
That evidence could be especially useful when deciding which programmes should expand, which should be reviewed and where additional industry partnerships may be required.
The information could also help prospective students make better-informed decisions about study choices.
Higher education funding faces new scrutiny
The debate has significant implications for higher education funding.
South Africa invests substantial public resources in universities and student financial aid, making it important to understand whether those investments are delivering educational and economic outcomes.
Without detailed graduate destination information, policymakers face difficulties when trying to assess the labour-market return associated with specific qualifications.
This does not mean a degree should be judged solely by whether it leads directly to a job. Universities also have broader social, intellectual and research functions.
However, employment outcomes are an important part of the discussion when government is planning scarce public resources.
NSFAS and public investment
The question also extends to state-funded student support, including the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
Zibi argued that without more timely information, public funding and state bursaries could potentially continue financing qualifications without sufficient visibility into labour-market outcomes.
That argument has fuelled calls for a system that connects university data with employment data in a secure and legally compliant way.
The challenge is therefore not simply to collect more information, but to create a system that can turn information into better decisions.
South Africa skills mismatch remains a challenge
The South Africa skills mismatch is broader than university graduate unemployment.
The country can have large numbers of unemployed people while employers struggle to fill particular vacancies.
This apparent contradiction is one of the reasons labour-market information matters.
The World Bank’s 2026 assessment described the situation as a structural mismatch in South Africa’s digital skills pipeline. Employers reported shortages in advanced fields while many graduates were concentrated in qualifications that did not necessarily match the strongest areas of demand.
The report also stressed that employers increasingly seek transferable skills such as communication and problem-solving alongside technical expertise.
High-demand occupations already identified
DHET already maintains a National List of Occupations in High Demand.
The department says the list is intended to improve the responsiveness of the post-school education and training system to economic needs. It is designed to guide enrolment planning, support the development of new qualifications, inform resource allocation and strengthen career guidance.
DHET’s planning resources also include reports on skills gaps, occupations in high demand and funding and expenditure trends across the post-school education and training system.
The problem, therefore, is not that government has no labour-market intelligence at all.
The bigger gap is the absence of a comprehensive, continuously updated system linking individual qualifications to employment outcomes.
Data protection complicates graduate tracking
Building a national graduate tracking system also presents legal and technical challenges.
The National Treasury has explained that linking personal information across administrative datasets requires an appropriate legal basis and compliance with data-protection requirements.
Different government databases are also collected for different purposes, meaning they may use different definitions, formats and quality standards.
Securely linking those datasets requires appropriate infrastructure, data-governance frameworks and specialist technical expertise.
Balancing privacy and policy needs
The challenge is to create useful labour-market intelligence without exposing graduates’ personal information unnecessarily.
A well-designed system would need strong safeguards around data access, security and anonymisation where appropriate.
That means the delay in establishing such a system is not necessarily caused by a lack of interest.
It reflects the complexity of joining data held by universities, government departments and other institutions for different purposes.
Nevertheless, the longer the information gap persists, the harder it becomes for policymakers to respond quickly to changes in the labour market.
Graduate unemployment rises to 12.4%
The timing of the debate is significant because graduate unemployment has increased.
Stats SA’s Q2 2026 figures show graduate unemployment at 12.4%, up from 12.2% in Q1.
Over the longer series presented in the QLFS, graduate unemployment has moved considerably over time, demonstrating that even people with tertiary qualifications are not insulated from economic downturns and weak labour absorption.
However, the graduate rate remains substantially below unemployment among people with matric or less than matric.
Stats SA reported unemployment rates of 36.0% among people with matric and 39.2% among those with less than matric in Q2 2026, compared with 12.4% among graduates.
This reinforces an important point: higher education continues to provide a major employment advantage, even though it does not guarantee a job.
What better data could change
A robust graduate tracking system could change decisions at several levels.
Universities could use stronger employment evidence when designing or reviewing programmes.
Government could use destination data when allocating funding and setting enrolment targets.
Students could receive more meaningful information about career pathways before choosing qualifications.
Employers could work more closely with institutions to address gaps between academic programmes and workplace requirements.
And government could identify areas where graduates face persistent unemployment and determine whether the problem is oversupply, weak economic demand, inadequate work experience or a mismatch in curriculum content.
From enrolment to employment
The key policy shift would be to move beyond measuring how many students enter and complete university.
The system would also need to measure what happens afterwards.
That is the central issue behind the debate about DHET graduate unemployment.
Education statistics can show the scale of participation, but employment outcomes show whether qualifications are translating into economic opportunities.
World Bank calls for stronger labour-market alignment
The World Bank’s South Africa digital-skills report provides further support for improving this connection.
It recommends stronger coordination of policy, funding and delivery, expanded workplace learning and greater use of current labour-market information when deciding what education programmes should be prioritised.
The report also identified software engineering, cybersecurity, networking and other advanced digital fields as areas where shortages remain significant.
This suggests that the policy challenge is not simply to produce more graduates.
It is to produce the right mix of skills at the right time, while ensuring that students gain practical experience that improves their chances of entering the workforce.
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Conclusion
The statement that DHET cannot track degrees linked to graduate unemployment exposes a major weakness in South Africa’s ability to connect education policy with employment outcomes.
The country already has substantial information about university enrolments, qualifications and completions, but DHET does not routinely link those records to individual graduates’ subsequent labour-market status.
At the same time, graduate unemployment has reached 12.4%, according to Stats SA’s Q2 2026 figures.
The proposed National Graduate Destination Study could help close the gap by tracking graduate career pathways across all 26 public universities. However, the project remains in its early stages, with no primary findings yet available.
The issue also connects directly to higher education funding, university degree employability and the wider South Africa skills mismatch.
Government already uses its National List of Occupations in High Demand to guide planning and resource allocation, while the World Bank has called for stronger use of real-time labour-market data.
The challenge now is turning these separate sources of information into an integrated graduate tracking system that can show, with much greater precision, what happens to South Africans after they graduate.
For students, universities, employers and taxpayers, that information could become essential to making better decisions about which qualifications to pursue, fund and expand.
Mainstream media references
- Daily Maverick — DHET admits it cannot track which degrees lead to graduate unemployment
Read the Daily Maverick report - TimesLIVE / Sunday Times — Skills shortages are holding back businesses in South Africa
Read the TimesLIVE/Sunday Times report - News24 — Unemployment rate falls to lowest in five years
Read the News24 report - Daily Maverick — Graduate unemployment and the difficulty of finding work after university
Read the Daily Maverick article
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