University of Applied Science and Innovation: A critical chapter for South Africa’s youth

Youth unemployment in South Africa now stands at 43.8%, according to Statistics South Africa’s first-quarter 2026 figures. That number does not stand alone. It reflects a generation of young people who qualified, showed up and were ready, but for whom the institutions, opportunities and pathways simply did not exist. The proposed Ekurhuleni University of Applied Science and Innovation speaks directly to that failure.

Every year, thousands of capable young people from Ekurhuleni’s townships leave their communities in search of higher education elsewhere. Many do not make it, not because they lack ability, but because the cost of distance becomes an impossible barrier. The long-term cost of that reality is hard to measure, but easy to recognise. It is visible in communities where graduate skills do not return, and in households where limited opportunity reproduces itself from one generation to the next.

The case for this institution is not abstract. It is grounded in South Africa’s own policy direction. The 2019 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation identifies high youth unemployment as one of the country’s defining structural challenges. That position is reinforced by the STI Decadal Plan 2021 to 2031, which calls for expanded national capacity in artificial intelligence, robotics, digital literacy and data science. Taken together, these two documents do more than support the case for an applied science university in Ekurhuleni. They expose its absence as a serious gap in the country’s development agenda.

We are living in a STEM-driven economy. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics are no longer specialised disciplines reserved for a narrow elite. They are becoming the foundational literacy of the 21st century. Countries that have made real progress in reducing youth unemployment have done so, in part, by making STEM education more accessible, practical and closely tied to economic participation.

South Africa has not yet done this at the scale the moment demands. There are strong pockets of excellence across the country, but there is still no dedicated, nationally recognised institution built explicitly around STEM as a vehicle for youth empowerment, innovation and economic transformation.

The Ekurhuleni University of Applied Science and Innovation should be that institution.

It should not be another university that happens to offer STEM programmes. It should be South Africa’s flagship applied STEM university, a national centre for science, technology and innovation, with a clear and unapologetic mandate: to equip young South Africans with the skills, qualifications and entrepreneurial capacity to compete and lead in both the local and global economy.

An institution of this kind carries significance far beyond its campus. It sets standards. It shifts perception. It attracts investment and partnerships. It draws talent. Most importantly, it sends a message to young people, especially those from communities historically excluded from science and technology pathways, that these fields belong to them too. When a young person in KwaThema or Tembisa can look at a world-class STEM university in their own city and see themselves reflected in its students, faculty and future, aspiration begins to feel credible.

The entrepreneurship dimension of this vision is just as important, and too often treated as secondary. STEM education, at its most powerful, does not only produce employees. It produces founders, inventors and problem-solvers. Many of the world’s most influential companies in fintech, health technology, clean energy, logistics and artificial intelligence were built by people who knew how to apply technical knowledge to real-world problems. South Africa has no shortage of such problems, nor of young people capable of solving them. What it has lacked is the institutional infrastructure to convert that potential into enterprise.

The strongest education systems in the world, including those in China, the United States, Germany, Switzerland and Singapore, share one important feature: they have narrowed the gap between learning and work. In those systems, industry partnerships are not optional extras. They are built into the curriculum itself. Applied to Ekurhuleni’s specific economic geography, that model could position the university as a direct contributor to the metro’s aerotropolis vision, feeding talent into advanced manufacturing, smart logistics, robotics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and data infrastructure. These sectors already exist in emerging form within the metro’s industrial and logistics base. The university’s role would be to strengthen and accelerate them.

South Africa’s history has shown, time and again, that young people stand at the centre of transformation. From the uprisings of 1976 to the democratic transition of the 1990s, they have repeatedly shaped the country’s direction. Today the struggle looks different, but it is no less urgent. It is a struggle for access, relevance and meaningful opportunity in a rapidly changing world.

Handled with the seriousness it deserves, the Ekurhuleni University of Applied Science and Innovation represents a rare chance to get something right at the point where education, economic reality and social dignity meet. It should not be seen as a conventional higher education initiative. It should be understood as a bold national project, one aimed squarely at one of South Africa’s most pressing challenges: youth unemployment and economic exclusion.

When government provides direction and ambition, and the private sector brings investment, expertise and practical application, the university becomes more than a place of learning. It becomes a platform for national renewal, one that does not simply produce graduates, but helps shape a future in which South Africa’s youth are active participants in the economy, not spectators at its margins.

The opportunity is there. The pace of change in the world is only accelerating. The question is whether we have the clarity and collective will to build the institution this moment demands.