In 2021, the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Blade Nzimande said his department planned to build two new higher education institutions following approval from cabinet.
At the beginning of 2022, the department of Higher Education and Training appointed a committee to conduct a feasibility study on the two new institutions, that are funded through the Infrastructure and Efficiency Grant (IEG) to the value of R6 million.
These universities includes a university for science and innovation and a university for crime detection.
The new University of Science and Innovation will be built in Ekurhuleni and will focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and the new crime detection University will be built in Hammanskraal.
Minister Nzimande reported that he received the two feasibility studies which will be processed within the next financial year.
Though the feasibility studies were successfully conducted there are still concerns about the funds available for the construction of the two new universities.
The Minister stated that student enrollment at universities increased from 1.85568 million in 2018 to 1.94808 million in the 2022 academic year.
It is also reported that in the 2022 academic year, 29% of enrollment was into science and technology programmes at universities as well as an increase of doctoral graduates since 2018.
Nzimande said that this added hope that these graduates as academics will assist in the development of science.
