Headlines have often focused on turbulence at the University of Fort Hare. Yet the deeper institutional record of Professor Sakhela Buhlungu’s two terms tells a different story — one of rebuilding, stabilisation and strategic renewal at one of Africa’s most important universities.
By Zola Pinda:
The University of Fort Hare has never been merely another university. It is one of the great institutions of African history. Its historical orbit includes heads of state — Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Seretse Khama of Botswana, and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. It produced liberation leaders of extraordinary courage — Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani and Robert Sobukwe. It produced a Nobel Laureate — Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It produced intellectuals who shaped African thought — Z.K. Matthews. It produced leaders of government and institutions — Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Sizwe Nxasana, Lazarus Zim and many others who carried the Fort Hare name into public service, business and the corporate world.
For generations it has stood for more than formal learning. It has formed part of Africa’s wider journey towards dignity, leadership and self-determination. That is why concern about its recent troubles has been understandable. Governance failures, academic fraud, internal conflict and a damaged public image have shaped perceptions of the university in recent years. The involvement of the Special Investigating Unit and subsequent arrests reinforced the impression of an institution trapped in crisis. But that is not the whole story — and it has been told often enough. What has received far less attention is the deeper institutional record of what has actually been built.
Renewal as Method
From 2017, over the course of Professor Sakhela Buhlungu’s two terms as Vice-Chancellor, Fort Hare pursued a recognisable programme of renewal anchored in its 2022–2026 strategic plan, Towards a Decade of Renewal. The plan recognised that institutions of this kind are not repaired through image management — they are repaired through systems.
The strategy rested on six interdependent priorities: teaching and learning, research and innovation, student life, infrastructure, governance, and financial sustainability. Together these reflected a sober understanding that institutions of Fort Hare’s stature are renewed through capable systems, academic excellence and disciplined execution.
Building for the Future
That understanding is now visible in measurable outcomes. The R130 million water and wastewater treatment upgrade at Alice — completed in partnership with the Amathole District Municipality and the Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality — tripled water treatment capacity from approximately 0.93 million cubic metres to 2.9 million cubic metres per year, doubled wastewater treatment capacity and included the construction of a new four-megalitre reservoir. The project strengthened both the university and the surrounding communities.
The R419 million Alice Student Village Phase II, completed in 2021, added 1,440 beds across twelve residence blocks, increasing campus accommodation to more than 6,000 beds and enabling approximately 70 per cent of Alice campus students to be accommodated on campus. Additional investments included upgraded lecture facilities, a 1,500-square-metre Student Centre, modern teaching spaces and the Miriam Makeba Hall for Music and Performance — reflecting renewal not only through governance but also through culture, creativity and student life.
Academic Renewal in Numbers
The university’s physical renewal has been matched by measurable academic progress. Student enrolment has grown from approximately 11,000 in 2017 to more than 17,000 in 2026, reflecting sustained institutional growth and renewed public confidence in Fort Hare. Academic performance has strengthened alongside this expansion. The university now records an undergraduate success rate of approximately 85 per cent, significantly above the national average and indicative of strengthened teaching, learning and student support.
Demand for admission has grown remarkably. During the 2025 admissions cycle, Fort Hare received approximately 200,000 applications, with around 95 per cent of applicants selecting the university as their first choice.
The same momentum is evident in postgraduate education. Fort Hare exceeded the Department of Higher Education and Training’s 2026 enrolment targets by registering 1,156 Master’s students and 443 Doctoral candidates across its six faculties.
These achievements reflect more than impressive enrolment figures. They demonstrate growing confidence in Fort Hare as a destination for advanced scholarship, strengthened institutional coordination across academic and administrative units, improved postgraduate support systems and an expanding research culture. Together, these indicators point not merely to institutional recovery but to a university rebuilding its academic reputation through measurable performance, strengthened research capacity and renewed public confidence.
Growing Confidence Through Sound Governance
Academic renewal has been complemented by improvements in institutional governance and financial management. Fort Hare has achieved four consecutive unqualified audit opinions between 2021 and 2024, reflecting sustained progress in financial governance, accountability and institutional management. Improved governance has strengthened confidence among government, industry and strategic partners.
One notable example is AngloGold Ashanti’s R12.5 million investment to establish the Research Chair in Dairy Science and Technology, reinforcing Fort Hare’s growing contribution to agricultural research, innovation and rural development. The university is also pursuing accreditation to offer a Bachelor of Dairy Science and Technology which, once approved by the relevant higher education authorities, will become the first qualification of its kind in South Africa.
These developments illustrate how improved governance and institutional credibility are increasingly translating into strategic investment, academic innovation and national confidence in the university’s future.
Preserving a Nation’s Memory
Renewal has also embraced the preservation of South Africa’s democratic and cultural inheritance. During this period, the University of Fort Hare consolidated its position as custodian of the ANC Archives — one of the country’s most important repositories documenting the history of the liberation struggle and the evolution of democratic South Africa. Equally significant has been the establishment of the Ladysmith Black Mambazo Archives, preserving the artistic journey and global legacy of one of Africa’s most celebrated musical groups.
Together these collections reaffirm Fort Hare’s historic vocation as more than a university. They position it as a living archive of South Africa’s political thought, intellectual tradition and cultural memory. On African campuses, physical decline often mirrors institutional decline. The reverse is equally true. When a university invests seriously in its physical environment, strengthens its academic mission, preserves its national heritage and demonstrates measurable improvements in governance and academic performance, it signals confidence in its future.
What Endures Beneath the Noise
Professor Buhlungu inherited a university under severe strain — one affected by procurement irregularities, academic fraud and entrenched institutional dysfunction. The programme of renewal unfolded in an environment marked by intense contestation and, tragically, by violence, including the assassination of his bodyguard, Mboneli Vesele, in January 2023.
Leadership in such circumstances is seldom exercised under ideal conditions. Institutional renewal is rarely linear. It demands the simultaneous management of governance reform, financial stability, academic performance, infrastructure development and public confidence while confronting resistance to change. Measured against these realities, the university that exists today differs markedly from the institution inherited in 2017.
A National Investment in Veterinary Science
Among the most significant initiatives of this period has been the drive to establish what would become only South Africa’s second veterinary faculty and the first in the Eastern Cape. The significance of this initiative extends far beyond the university itself. The Eastern Cape is South Africa’s largest livestock-producing province, yet it has never possessed a doctoral-level veterinary faculty capable of training veterinarians, advancing animal health research and supporting one of the country’s most important agricultural economies. Fort Hare’s proposal seeks to address that longstanding strategic gap.
The university has submitted a Bachelor of Veterinary Science programme for national approval. Government has already committed R80 million towards the first phase of infrastructure development at the Honeydale Research Farm, while planning continues for a projected R253 million Veterinary Academic Hospital that will anchor teaching, clinical training and veterinary research.
These developments are complemented by the university’s investment in expanding veterinary clinical facilities and strengthening agricultural research. Together with the proposed Bachelor of Dairy Science and Technology programme and the establishment of the AngloGold Ashanti Research Chair in Dairy Science and Technology, they reflect a coherent institutional strategy that links higher education directly to agricultural innovation, food security, rural development and economic growth.
For the Eastern Cape, these initiatives have significance well beyond the university. They have the potential to strengthen livestock production, improve veterinary services, expand opportunities for young scientists, support emerging farmers and reinforce South Africa’s long-term agricultural resilience. They also reaffirm Fort Hare’s historic mission of serving communities whose development depends not only on academic excellence, but on practical solutions to national challenges.
Governance and Due Process
None of these achievements diminishes the significance of the university’s current governance processes. Professor Buhlungu’s precautionary suspension, announced on 30 March 2026, and the commencement of the process to appoint his successor form part of Fort Hare’s present reality. They deserve careful public scrutiny.
They should not, however, eclipse the broader institutional record accumulated over two terms of leadership. A precautionary suspension is an established governance mechanism designed to protect the integrity of institutional processes. It is not, in itself, a final historical judgment on a leader’s tenure. History ultimately evaluates leadership not only through moments of controversy, but through the institutions that remain after the headlines have faded.
The Succession Question
The formal announcement of the end of Professor Buhlungu’s tenure has transformed what was once a governance debate into a succession question. The university is now inviting perspectives on the qualities required in its next Vice-Chancellor. That invitation is significant because it asks a larger question: what kind of leadership should guide one of Africa’s historic universities through its next chapter?
The record of the past eight years provides an important benchmark. The renewal described here — institutional reform, financial stability, infrastructure investment, academic growth, strengthened research, postgraduate expansion, cultural preservation and strategic investment in agriculture and veterinary science — reflects an approach to leadership grounded in clarity of purpose, disciplined execution and the willingness to confront deeply rooted institutional challenges.
The next Vice-Chancellor will inherit a university that is more strategically defined, academically stronger, financially more stable and more conscious of its historic mission than the institution inherited in 2017. The responsibility will be to consolidate those gains while completing the unfinished work of renewal. The appointment should therefore be judged not by political convenience or short-term expediency, but by the ability to safeguard and advance Fort Hare’s academic integrity, institutional independence and long-term mission.
The Measure of a Tenure
Fort Hare’s renewal remains unfinished. Like every great institution, it will continue to evolve as new leaders assume responsibility for its future. A fair-minded assessment of Professor Buhlungu’s tenure should therefore consider the institution in its entirety: the strengthening of governance, four consecutive unqualified audit opinions, investment in infrastructure, expanding student enrolment, improved academic performance, research ambition, postgraduate growth, cultural preservation and the foundations laid for future innovation in agriculture and veterinary science.
Public controversy may dominate headlines. It does not, however, settle the deeper historical question. That question is this: in what condition was the university inherited, what direction was it given, and what institutional standard has it been entrusted to the next generation? History rarely delivers its verdict in the heat of controversy. It waits. It measures. It compares.
Measured against that enduring standard, the story of the University of Fort Hare over the past eight years is not simply one of controversy. It is also one of institutional renewal.
That is the fuller record. That is the broader context. And that is the story that deserves its place in South Africa’s national conversation about higher education.
Zola Pinda is a Rhodes University-trained journalist with a Master’s degree in Professional and Business Communication from La Salle University, Philadelphia. He is a former Director of Communication for the Scorpions (Directorate of Special Operations) and the National Prosecuting Authority, and a former Assistant Director-General in the South African national government. He writes in his personal capacity on governance – @NewsSA_Online
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