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A quarter of a century after South Africa's transition to democracy, the rhetoric of 'transformation' remains firmly ingrained in its higher education policy and discourse. In many of the reviews, reports, proposals, and frameworks on the transformation of the South African university system, one thing stands out: an oversupply of rhetoric and a dearth of empirical data. This article is a direct response to how infrequently data has been used and seeks to reveal the actual quantum of change, albeit with a focus on an admittedly singular element on the transformation spectrum but one which nevertheless preoccupies South Africans: equity (or race). The evidence presented in the paper shows that the absence of a clear articulation of transformation, accompanied by a lack of indicators and targets to track progress over time, hinders the progression of the discourse to equally important dimensions of performance such as efficiency, success and productivity--all of which are critical in determining the university's role in national development. The paper goes on to show that based on the data available, the public university system in South Africa is "transforming" given the increases over time in the number of black students and staff. However, without a clearly articulated idea of what constitutes change, one cannot claim a "transformed" system, and the political narrative of no transformation is likely to prevail.

To gain insight into the state of doctoral education in South Africa at the turn of the twenty-first century, this paper provides a descriptive outline and analysis of the doctoral degrees awarded at South African universities in 1996. The analysis highlights the finding that the distribution of doctoral awards for this year was very skewed. This was true for the distribution across individual universities, and in terms of the recipients of doctorates in terms of race and gender. The concentration of doctoral degrees in a very narrow selection of subfields of study was also evident - in general showing little relation to the most pressing social, economic and political development needs of the country though it was found that some important contributions to scholarship in certain fields are being made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]