The Select Committee on Education, Sciences and Creative Industries has noted the Policy Framework on Internationalisation of universities as presented by the Department of Higher Education and Training on Tuesday.

The Chairperson of the committee, Mr Makhi Feni, called on the department to provide updated statistical information, that will help the committee to act from an informed perspective on issues in the sector. He said: “We appreciate this initiative but we call on the department to ensure that it empowers black South Africans, the previously disadvantaged and other vulnerable groups.

“Keeping up with international standards is ideal but such move must empower South Africans. We must not be swallowed up in convenient phrases, but we want South Africans to equally influence the world through research output that does not regurgitate international models.”

Minister Nobuhle Nkabane led the departmental delegation in the meeting with the committee this morning. She informed the committee that the policy will serve as a guideline to South Africa’s institutions of higher education.

Mr Feni said the policy is urgent and that in the era of indigenous knowledge systems and decolonised knowledge, we should be able to make conditions conducive for black South African scholars at home and abroad. “But in the absence of relevant and reliable information, we are unable to do anything. Even the swirling complaints about foreign nationals uprooting Black South Africans from their system will continue,” Mr Feni said.

Mr Feni said the development of a policy framework must not be delayed as Black South Africans legitimately feel they are being substituted by foreign nationals. “There will be claims of xenophobia, when in fact this was something that could have easily been avoided.”