JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A stampede broke out Tuesday as thousands tried to enrol at a Johannesburg university, killing one woman and injuring at least 20 people, university and emergency services officials said.

Thousands of people had queued outside the University of Johannesburg after it announced it would accept late applications from those who missed an earlier deadline or who recently became eligible thanks to their exam scores.

When the university opened its gates at 7:30 am (0530 GMT) to begin letting applicants in, people in the back of the line started pushing, officials said.

“There was a simply unbearable thrust at the front. The outcome was we had one parent who was also in the queue that was crushed and passed away. Two other people are in a critical condition,” vice chancellor Ihron Rensburg told a press conference.

Footage on a local TV channel showed the area littered with stray clothing and shoes pulled off in the fray.

Aspiring students had been queuing outside the university since the early hours of Monday hoping to submit late applications. Many had brought umbrellas and chairs and camped there overnight.

“There were 20 injured patients,” Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokeswoman Nana Radebe told the Sapa news agency.

South Africa’s national university system has room for some 150,000 first-year students this year. A further 180,000 high school graduates are expected to be turned away.

Rensburg said the University of Johannesburg had decided to accept late applications in a bid to make sure poor black students were not excluded from higher education.

“We must do everything possible to a community that simply doesn’t have access to information to afford them this opportunity,” he said.

The university said it had received 85,000 on-time applications for the 2012 academic year, up from 67,000 for 2011.

Rensburg said the university expected to take about 11,000 applications Tuesday and would likely stop accepting new applicants after that.

The South African economy, with an unemployment rate hovering around 25 percent, has failed to keep up with the growing number of pupils entering school, he said.

“Each year the school system adds 350,000 extra people. There are now 3.5 million. But the employment system stayed the same,” said Van Rensburg.

In a country where blacks were largely excluded from higher education under apartheid, the fight for university places also has a racial dimension.

The crowds of people who gathered outside the University of Johannesburg hoping desperately for places were almost entirely black.

“I’m crying for the education of a black child,” Frans Malotle, a parent in the queue, told eNews television as he waited overnight to register his child.

“There’s a very racist discourse that tries to say people are not prepared for university, they shouldn’t get in, we shouldn’t be admitting them,” Graeme Bloch, an education policy analyst and visiting professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, told AFP.

“Hell, people are prepared to queue day and night to get in. They obviously are keen to get in. What we need is more places, not less students.”

There were no signs of the morning’s stampede on the campus by midday. Substantially smaller queues were moving in dribs and drabs through metal barricades.

Fanie Nhlapo, 19, said he had been waiting since 1:30 am to apply.

“I want to become an ambassador,” said the eastern Johannesburg resident, the son of two unemployed parents.

“I didn’t apply last year because the application fee was expensive (250 rand, about $30, 25 euros),” he told AFP.

“My dad did some recycling and raised the money for me.”