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Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has increasingly become the target of criticism in South Africa’s policy debates. What began as a concern raised by liberal think tanks and minority rights groups has now entered the mainstream, with government departments considering changes to how BEE is applied in certain sectors. As a result, African National Congress (ANC) politicians, from the president down, have had to publicly defend the policy.

BEE has become a catch-all term for racially driven legal instruments that govern a wide range of policy interventions, including how supply chains operate, how procurement is conducted, and how hiring and promotion are organised in both the private and public sectors. While the government is attempting to respond to growing public pressure, it remains unclear whether meaningful reform is likely.

One proposal put forward by critics is to retain BEE, but make it non-racial in nature. Such an approach would preserve the need for redress in an unequal society, while shifting the focus from race to class or need. Such an approach could be applied in the higher education sector, specifically in university admissions.

Many countries use race, or other identity-based criteria, to support students from disadvantaged or historically oppressed communities. Examples include the United States (US), India, New Zealand, and Brazil, where beneficiaries include African Americans, Dalits (historically marginalised castes), and indigenous groups. These programmes have been as controversial in those countries as they have been in South Africa. In the US, for example, they have led to significant legal challenges.

Some countries have taken other approaches. Germany and France, for instance, have very few affirmative action programmes, relying instead on standardised admissions processes. The United Kingdom follows a similar model, but incorporates “contextual admissions”, which take into account an applicant’s background. However, one of the clearest examples of a non-racial, class-based system in elite university admissions can be found in Israel.

No racial or ethnic criteria

Israel does not rely on racial or ethnic criteria, partly because such categories are ineffective and potentially destabilising in its context. Despite what you might have heard about “apartheid”, Israel is a highly diverse society. Around 80% of the population is Jewish and 20% is Arab.

Within the Jewish population, there are people from more than 100 countries, including India, Ethiopia, China, Poland, and Morocco. These communities bring different cultural, socio-economic, and historical experiences. Some Jewish families have lived in the region for thousands of years, while others might have arrived last month.

Similarly, within the Arab population, while the majority are Muslim, there are multiple other religious traditions, alongside differences in geography, class, gender, and tribal affiliation. These factors often matter more than race or ethnicity in determining socio-economic outcomes.

As a result, racial or ethnic categories are not reliable proxies for disadvantage. For example, Jews of European origin (Ashkenazi) are often considered economically advantaged. However, a young woman fleeing the war in Ukraine could fall into this category. But she would be economically more vulnerable than a woman from a wealthy family of Middle Eastern origin (Mizrachi) whose family has been established in Jerusalem for many generations. Likewise, a Muslim family of European origin, whose ancestors came to Israel from the Balkans or Caucasus, might appear racially “white”, but be less economically advantaged than their darker-skinned Christian neighbours, whose communities have access to better-performing schools.

In a society already managing tensions related to ethnicity, language, land, gender, and ongoing conflict with its neighbours, introducing policies that favour particular groups based on identity could undermine social cohesion.

Instead, Israeli universities have adopted a class-based approach. They target students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, focusing on disadvantaged schools and neighbourhoods, whether in rural areas or underdeveloped urban centres.

Notably, there is no law mandating this approach. It developed organically, beginning in the 1990s at a law faculty in Tel Aviv, where a professor observed that his class was overwhelmingly composed of students from wealthy, urban, Ashkenazi backgrounds. He introduced measures to broaden access and demands began for this to be expanded to the rest of the university. Although there was initial resistance, the success of the programme attracted attention from the media and policymakers. Universities then chose to adopt similar models voluntarily, rather than risk state intervention.

Successful

The system has been largely successful. While it targets students based on socio-economic need, a significant proportion of beneficiaries still come from historically disadvantaged communities. This has helped make Israeli universities much more diverse places. In some institutions, such as the University of Haifa, up to 45% of students are from the Arab community.

Importantly, this approach does not exclude private initiatives that directly support specific groups through targeted scholarships or programmes based on ethnicity or gender. The system is also relatively easy to administer, as it focuses on geographic areas, rather than requiring detailed individual means testing.

Critics argue that while the system has improved diversity, a race-based approach might produce greater representation of certain minority groups. This is largely due to demographic realities. In countries like the US, for example, even if minority groups are disproportionately poor, the majority of poor people might still belong to the majority white population, meaning they benefit more from class-based policies.

Proponents of identity-based programmes argue that diversity is valuable in itself, and that systemic cultural biases in admissions processes can disadvantage certain groups, regardless of socio-economic status.

Racialised language

Adopting Israel's race-neutral approach in South Africa’s higher education system could help reduce the highly racialised language that currently dominates university discourse, including tensions involving foreigners. Moreover, because poverty in South Africa is still overwhelmingly concentrated among the black majority, a class-based system would still primarily benefit those it was originally designed to assist.

However, such a policy would not solve all of South Africa’s higher education challenges. There is a fundamental shortage of resources and available space at high-quality institutions for qualified school leavers. As a result, existing BEE frameworks could be adapted to incentivise investment in education, including at the primary and secondary level and, of course, at universities and colleges.

Greater private sector participation could also help relieve pressure on public institutions. For example, removing restrictions on the number of nurses that private healthcare providers are allowed to train would expand capacity. Similarly, the recent move to allow private universities to award degrees is a positive step.

Taken together, these reforms could help build an education system that develops the talents of all South Africans and contributes to a more inclusive and prosperous future.