Corrupted but not forgotten: why South Africa ignored a vital warning about its universities

Jonathan Jansen’s 2023 book offered a clear diagnosis of campus corruption – but new scandals show how little we listened, and how much is still at stake.

Article link: https://open.substack.com/pub/johanosteyn/p/corrupted-but-not-forgotten-why-south?r=73gqa&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Audio summary: https://youtu.be/Fk3AlFsVQzU

I write about various issues of interest to me that I want to bring to the reader’s attention. While my main work is in Artificial Intelligence and technology, I also cover areas around politics, education, and the future of our children.

When Jonathan Jansen published Corrupted: A Study of Chronic Dysfunction in South African Universities in 2023, it should have landed like a thunderclap. Here was a respected academic documenting, in painful detail, how some universities had been captured by rent-seeking networks, besieged by corrupt tender practices and crippled by weak governance. Yet, outside policy and academic circles, the book never quite received the sustained national attention it deserved.

Two years on, a steady stream of investigations into student funding, discretionary grants and institutional governance shows that Jansen was not describing a passing crisis, but a structural illness. In this article, I want to revisit Corrupted in the light of more recent evidence – and ask why, as a country, we still seem reluctant to confront the scale of the problem.

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

Corrupted is based on ministerial reports, administrator findings and more than a hundred interviews with those who lived through campus crises. Jansen describes universities placed under repeated administration, leadership teams paralysed by factional battles, and councils captured by interests more focused on contracts than curricula. Academic work, he argues, is systematically crowded out by the politics of patronage: who controls catering, security and residence tenders; who allocates funding; who benefits from institutional decisions.

What makes the book so unsettling is that it situates this dysfunction in a broader South African political economy. We know from state-owned enterprises and local government how public institutions can become vehicles for extracting rents from the state. Universities, with their large flows of public money, infrastructure budgets and student funding, were never going to be immune. Jansen warned that unless governance, ethics and accountability were taken seriously, higher education risked following the same trajectory as other hollowed-out parts of the state.

INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS

Since 2023, events have largely confirmed his diagnosis. Investigations into the National Student Financial Aid Scheme have revealed billions of rands in overpayments, poor reconciliation of accounts and systems that struggle to track who is genuinely eligible for support. Universities and colleges have been required to pay back large sums. We have seen allegations of “ghost” students, payments to individuals who do not qualify, and institutions claiming funding for learners who never actually attend. This is not simply a technical failure. It is the predictable outcome of weak systems meeting opportunistic behaviour.

At the same time, we have watched continuing governance battles at some institutions: contested appointments, protests that turn violent, factional fights over who controls key decisions. Industry bodies such as Universities South Africa have correctly cautioned against tarring the entire sector with the same brush. Many universities continue to deliver high-quality teaching and research under difficult conditions. Yet that should not distract us from the uncomfortable truth: corruption and chronic dysfunction in a subset of institutions place the credibility of the entire system at risk.

What troubles me most is how muted the broader societal response has been. Corrupted laid out the patterns clearly. Subsequent investigations and reports have added new evidence. But we have not yet seen a sustained public demand for reform on the same scale as, for example, the national outcry over corruption in state-owned enterprises. In a country where our children’s futures depend heavily on access to functioning universities, that silence is dangerous.

IMPLICATIONS

The implications are profound. First, financial and governance reform in universities cannot be treated as a technical side issue. Transparent procurement, robust financial controls and clean student-funding pipelines are central to the academic mission. Every rand lost to fraud or mismanagement is a rand taken from laboratories, libraries and bursaries.

Second, we need to think more seriously about how we choose and support leaders. Councils and senior executives should not be left to navigate intense political and financial pressures without clear rules, training and backing. Protecting ethical leadership – and those who blow the whistle when things go wrong – is essential if we want to change institutional cultures.

Third, technology, including data analytics and AI, can play a constructive role: tracking anomalies, flagging suspicious patterns in funding, and supporting evidence-based planning. But tools will only help if they are embedded in a culture of accountability. Software cannot replace courage.

CLOSING TAKEAWAY

Looking back, Corrupted reads less like a historical account and more like an early warning that we never fully heeded. The fact that, in 2025, we are still uncovering major funding scandals and governance failures should unsettle anyone who cares about South Africa’s future. Universities are not just places where degrees are handed out; they are engines of opportunity, research and social mobility for our children. If we allow corruption and chronic dysfunction to fester, we are choosing to weaken those engines at precisely the moment we need them most.

The challenge now is to move beyond quiet acceptance: to insist, as parents, citizens, academics and students, that integrity in higher education is non-negotiable – and that this time, we will not look away.

Author Bio: Johan Steyn is a prominent AI thought leader, speaker, and author with a deep understanding of artificial intelligence’s impact on business and society. He is passionate about ethical AI development and its role in shaping a better future. Find out more about Johan’s work at https://www.aiforbusiness.net