Agreed about the need to rejig the universities, but that is a massive undertaking, not just because of the university-level entrenched interests.  Regrettably, the TVET colleges lack the snob-appeal to make them a satisfactory or (to the general public) acceptable alternative.  
Generally world-leading countries seem to have specialised tertiary institutions, rather the the all-things-to-all-comers that are the SA universities.  How to get there, seems however an unanswerable problem.