Unisa is set to confer more than 16,900 qualifications during its 2026 Spring Graduation season, following 44,712 qualifications conferred during its Autumn Graduations.
Combined, the two graduation seasons account for 61,612 qualifications.
Behind that number are first-generation graduates, working professionals, doctoral researchers and students who overcame difficult circumstances to reach the graduation stage.
WHEN Jennifer Jade Kovačević crossed the graduation stage at the University of South Africa’s Muckleneuk Campus, she carried with her a distinction in criminology, years of working 12-hour days to pay for her studies and a childhood spent in foster care.
“I feel beyond proud of myself,” she said.
Her interest in criminology was not born only in textbooks.
Growing up in a foster home, Kovačević saw girls around her living with the consequences of abuse and psychological trauma. She became interested in understanding the circumstances that shape people’s behaviour and, eventually, in crime and its effects on individuals and communities.
“I’ve always been interested in criminology because I come from a foster home and a lot of the girls there were abused and they had a lot of psychological trauma,” she said.
Years later, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminology, majoring in psychology, and with distinction.
Kovačević is one of more than 16,900 graduates receiving qualifications during Unisa’s 2026 Spring Graduation season.
But behind that number are thousands of individual journeys.
Ndivho Forgiveness Dimbanyika became the first university graduate in her family.
Kobo Muwampi Sabangu completed a Master of Commerce after what she described as an extraordinarily difficult journey.
Dr Kumi Ebenezer Nyarko moved from West Africa to Southern Africa and balanced employment with years of doctoral research into renewable energy.
Unisa employees Sharon Maponya and Mlungisi Ngcobo combined their careers, personal responsibilities and studies to obtain new qualifications.
Different qualifications. Different circumstances. One institution.
Together, their experiences tell a larger story about the role a university operating at extraordinary scale can play in expanding access to education, developing advanced skills and producing knowledge across South Africa and the continent.
The Spring season stretches beyond South Africa. After ceremonies across the country’s regions, Unisa will hold graduations in Asmara, Eritrea, on 26 November and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 28 November, reflecting the continental footprint of its open distance e-learning model.
The scale matters in a country and continent where access to higher education, graduate employment, advanced skills and research capacity remain critical development challenges.
But numbers alone do not explain Unisa’s role.
Its students include young people entering higher education for the first time, working professionals studying while supporting families, people returning to university after years away from formal education and postgraduate researchers working at the frontiers of their disciplines.
Their university experience does not always resemble the traditional residential model.
Work, study and family responsibilities often occupy the same space.
For some, including Kovačević, the opportunity to study had to be created through their own labour.
Kovačević had long wanted to study criminology, but the opportunity had not always been available to her.
When it finally came, she worked 12-hour days and used her income to finance her education.
“Since working 12 hours a day, I was able to pay for my own studies. So I’m very proud of myself,” she said.
Her achievement is particularly striking because she did not simply complete the qualification. She graduated with distinction.
Her journey provides a human illustration of an argument often made about open distance education: flexibility can create pathways into higher education for people whose employment, finances, geography or personal circumstances make conventional full-time residential study difficult.
That flexibility does not make the academic journey easy.
It can demand exceptional discipline from students who must find time for assignments, examinations and independent study around the rest of their lives.
Kovačević did exactly that.
Her message to other young people is informed by where she started.
“Whether you’re a foster kid or a kid from a single household or wherever you come from, just do your best, work hard, and anything is possible,” she said.
For Forgiveness, graduation carried another kind of significance.
When she completed her Bachelor of Arts, she became the first person in her family to graduate from university.
“It was so hard and I’m so happy, so excited,” she said.
Her advice was equally straightforward.
“Don’t give up. Even if you fail, keep pushing.”
These are individual achievements, but they point towards the broader significance of access to higher education.
A qualification can change an individual’s employment prospects and earning potential, but its effects can also extend into families and communities.
A first-generation graduate changes what is possible within a household. A working professional who acquires new skills takes those capabilities back into the workplace. A doctoral researcher adds new knowledge to a field.
It is in these outcomes that Sustainable Development Goal 4’s emphasis on inclusive, equitable quality education and lifelong learning becomes less abstract.
For Unisa, the question is not simply how many students can enter higher education, but how many can translate that opportunity into qualifications, knowledge and greater possibilities after graduation.
Opening the Spring Graduation season, Unisa Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Puleng LenkaBula challenged graduates to see their qualifications as carrying responsibilities beyond personal advancement.
“Today we gather not only to celebrate your academic achievements, but to recognise the emergence of a generation entrusted with shaping the future,” she told them.
Her message reflects a larger question confronting universities: what does society receive in return for the knowledge produced within them?
Higher education institutions are measured through enrolments, throughput, research publications, postgraduate qualifications and rankings.
Their ultimate impact, however, is also found in what graduates do when they leave.
South Africa needs graduates who can enter schools, laboratories, businesses, hospitals, courts, public institutions and communities equipped not only with credentials, but with the capacity to solve problems.
For an institution operating at Unisa’s scale, that potential multiplier effect is considerable.
Sabangu’s Master of Commerce journey provides another example of the persistence required of many distance-learning students.
“My journey has been a very, very hard journey. To be where I am today, it wasn’t easy at all,” she said.
Her advice to those following behind her was simple: “Don’t give up. You have to hang in there and push.”
For Maponya and Ngcobo, studying meant simultaneously remaining full-time Unisa employees.
Maponya’s academic journey has taken her from student leadership towards a deeper interest in academic support, leadership and mentorship.
“I know the kind of communicator and leader I want to become, one who remains curious, grounded and committed to making communication meaningful beyond the classroom,” she said.
The qualification was completed through periods of pressure, competing responsibilities and self-doubt.
Ngcobo faced the same fundamental problem experienced by thousands of working students: there are only so many hours in a day.
“Balancing work, family and studies was challenging,” he said.
But he believes the knowledge gained through his studies has strengthened his ability to contribute professionally.
“I can leverage this qualification towards growing professionally and developing academically,” he said.
Their experiences highlight another dimension of higher education that is becoming increasingly important as economies and technologies change.
Universities are not only preparing school-leavers for their first jobs. They are increasingly providing pathways for people already in employment to deepen expertise, acquire new capabilities and continue learning throughout their careers.
At the other end of the academic spectrum are Unisa’s doctoral graduates.
Their achievements demonstrate why graduation numbers cannot be understood purely as a measure of student throughput.
Doctoral qualifications represent years spent investigating unanswered questions and producing original knowledge.
Dr Nety Sol Sauna’s research investigated the characterisation and removal of naphthenic acid species in crude oil.
His eventual thesis looked considerably different from the research project he originally proposed.
“It was a long journey. My initial proposal was totally different from what the end result was. About 70% of it was left,” he said.
Research forced him to change course.
“As you work through it, changes are going to occur, and you need to adapt and keep pushing through, find new ideas and solutions on how to move forward,” he said.
That capacity to question assumptions and adapt when evidence points elsewhere is fundamental to serious research.
Dr Judith van der Linde pursued a different challenge.
Her doctoral work developed a framework for managing business capability stability through enterprise architecture, an increasingly relevant field as organisations attempt to navigate technological disruption while maintaining effective operations.
Her research intersects with Unisa’s Fourth Industrial Revolution and Digitalisation Catalytic Niche Area, where researchers are examining not simply how new technologies can be adopted, but how organisations and societies can respond to the changes they create.
For Van der Linde, however, the doctorate also became deeply personal.
“Not only does it open up a lot of doors for your career, but it also takes you on a personal journey of discovery,” she said.
“You learn so much about your strengths and weaknesses when you become a doctor.”
Nyarko’s doctorate took him into one of the most consequential development challenges facing Africa: energy.
His research examined the thermodynamic optimisation of Organic Rankine Cycle systems using hybrid renewable energy sources and nanofluid-zeotropic mixtures.
Organic Rankine Cycle systems can convert lower-temperature heat into useful energy. Improving their efficiency forms part of the wider scientific search for more effective and sustainable energy technologies.
The work consequently connects with SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy, but its significance is more immediate than an international development target.
Across Africa, reliable and affordable energy affects whether factories can operate, businesses can grow, digital infrastructure can expand and communities can participate fully in modern economies.
Building African research capacity in energy therefore matters.
For Nyarko, producing that research required considerable personal sacrifice.
Originally from West Africa, he moved to Southern Africa for his studies and continued working while completing his doctorate.
“It’s been an interesting one. A very tough one,” he said.
At one point, he considered stepping away from the programme.
“A PhD is not a joke, but it teaches you a lot. It made me learn a lot about myself.”
Much of the work happened after his ordinary working day had ended.
“You would have to stay up late, learn a lot of things. In addition to your regular job, putting all these things together was a difficult one,” he said.
He persisted.
And in doing so, his story moved from one of access to higher education to another challenge altogether: developing the advanced knowledge Africa requires to address its own problems.
Unisa’s size is inevitably central to its identity.
Its open distance e-learning model allows the institution to reach students whose geography, employment or personal circumstances might otherwise make conventional residential study difficult.
But scale creates its own responsibility.
Access without adequate academic support or successful completion does little to transform lives. Large enrolment numbers therefore have to be matched by teaching quality, student support, credible qualifications and research that contributes to society.
The graduates crossing the stage this year demonstrate what can happen when access becomes achievement.
Kovačević’s story captures that transition particularly clearly.
She did not come to higher education from an easy starting point.
She grew up in foster care. She witnessed the consequences of abuse and trauma around her. She waited for the opportunity to study what had long interested her. When that opportunity arrived, she worked long hours to finance it herself.
Then she graduated with distinction.
“Don’t give up on your dreams,” she said. “It might take you a long time to get there, but the door never closes, so don’t give up on it.”
Her second message is equally important.
“Stand up for yourself. Know that you can do it on your own.”
Support from others matters, she said, but young people should not underestimate their own agency.
“You do have those around you who really care about you, but you’re also capable of opening your own doors for yourself, and you should.”
LenkaBula has encouraged the graduating class to continue studying, broaden their horizons and use their qualifications to create opportunities for themselves and others.
That challenge matters in a country confronting unemployment, inequality, technological disruption, energy constraints and persistent demands for stronger institutions.
South Africa needs qualifications.
But it needs what those qualifications can produce even more: researchers, teachers, entrepreneurs, scientists, managers, legal professionals, innovators and citizens capable of confronting difficult problems.
The 61,612 qualifications conferred across Unisa’s 2026 Autumn and Spring graduation seasons therefore tell only part of the story.
The more important measure will emerge afterwards.
It will be found in what Forgiveness does with the opportunity created by becoming the first graduate in her family.
It will be seen in how Maponya and Ngcobo take new knowledge back into their professional lives.
It will emerge from the research Sauna, Van der Linde, Nyarko and other doctoral graduates carry into academia, industry and society.
And it will be reflected in what Kovačević does with a criminology qualification inspired, in part, by experiences that began long before she ever imagined herself standing on a university graduation stage.
Unisa’s scale gives it the capacity to produce tens of thousands of graduates.
Its greater contribution will be determined by how far the knowledge, opportunity and research represented by those graduates travel once the ceremonies are over.
For Kovačević, that journey began in circumstances she did not choose.
Where it goes next is something her education has given her greater power to determine.