South African universities have registered declining numbers of foreign nationals enrolling due to xenophobia fears and long visa delays, an academic has said.
There has been sporadic xenophobic attacks in the country in the last three years, forcing African students to shun local universities.
Prof Maxi Schoeman from the University of Pretoria warns this could affect the future rating of the country's universities.
Prof Schoeman, the deputy dean in the Faculty of Humanities, said they had received 200 fewer applications in 2017 for postgraduate studies. The faculty gets more than 1,000 applications per year.
She expressed the sentiments while addressing a seminar on the future of South African foreign policy at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria on Thursday. She told the gathering she had seen the impact of the xenophobic attacks and the backlash on the continent in a very practical way at the university campus.
By Peter Dube
Full story at The Eastern African.
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