Background

Colleagues at Rhodes University, University of Venda and Lancaster University were awarded R178 000 for a preparatory phase project, which has led to a full proposal detailed in the "Next steps" section of this website. This funding allowed us to conduct a literature review, to undertake a survey of postgraduate supervisors and students, and to meet together and share our doctoral education practices. In the process, we developed the proposal to launch a structured PhD programme in Higher Education Studies with a focus on social justice and quality.

The funding from the British Council is part of the DHET's UCDG initiative aimed at enhancing the capacity of the higher education system in South Africa. The particular focus of this grant is to increase the number of academics with doctorates.

What is the doctorate?

The doctoral degree is generally considered to provide the training necessary for an academic career not only because it demonstrates the ability to produce new knowledge but also because it requires the candidate to demonstrate the mastery of a field of study necessary to support the development of curricula in higher education. Whereas doctoral education was historically focused on the reproduction of the discipline through the production of scholars trained to adhere to disciplinary norms, contemporary doctoral training needs to take into account that scholars have to draw on a range of knowledge areas to address real world problems. At a practical level this can mean supervision using very different forms of organisational structure to the traditional master-apprentice-within-the-discipline model that has dominated over the years are necessary (see, for example, Malfroy, 2005; Govender & Dhunpath, 2011; Lei et al., 2011; Nerad, 2011; Groenewald & Steenekamp, 2017).

Although the doctorate ideally might be considered the minimum qualification for academic work, the number of staff qualified at this level and employed in South African universities falls short of the 75% benchmark set in the National Development Plan (2011). Data produced by the DHET, for example, shows an average of only 44.9% of permanently employed staff members at South African universities holding a doctoral degree.

Of even more significance is the fact that possession of a doctoral degree is skewed along lines of division within the higher education system itself with a far greater proportion of staff employed at historically white research intensive universities qualified at this level than, say, those employed in a university of technology on the basis of their expertise and experience in a professional work area. This means that universities which, historically, have produced the bulk of South Africa’s research outputs continue to do so while historically black universities and universities of technology struggle to compete. Clearly this has implications for funding given the way research is rewarded and, also, given that these same universities struggle to attract high performing students who would complete in regulation time. Thus, these universities are not always able to maximise the potential of the national funding formula. The number of staff holding doctoral degrees as a proportion of the total number of individuals employed in an academic capacity at South African universities is even more skewed when gender and race is taken into account. Data show that white staff members are much more likely to be qualified at doctoral level than their black peers and that men are more likely to hold a qualification at this level than women.

The DHET initiative to increase academics with doctorates

The project which is the subject of this proposal falls within the DHET’s Existing Staff Capacity Enhancement Programme (ESCEP), located within the larger University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP). As its name suggests, the ESCEP seeks to improve the qualifications of staff already employed in South African universities preferably up to doctoral level.

Although the need for staff working in South African universities to qualify at doctoral level is huge (with data showing that more than 10 000 permanently employed academics still need to complete doctorates), the proposed project aims only to ‘nibble’ at the large number still needing to qualify by aiming to recruit and develop only twelve individuals to doctoral level over its duration. Although ten academics qualifying with doctoral degrees is but a drop in the ocean of those who need to do so, other benefits resulting from the project can also be identified that will, ultimately, contribute to the ESCEP.

Most importantly, we hope that the use of a project approach with coursework will be useful in challenging the current dominance on the one-on-one or ‘Master-Apprentice’ model of doctoral education (ASSAf 2010, CHE/CREST 2009). Research has repeatedly identified the reliance on this model, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences as a restriction on retention and throughput at doctoral level (Cloete, Mouton & Sheppard 2016) and yet it remains the most common model. This project will not only allow us to identify the strengths of a more structured, collaborative approach to doctoral education for this team of supervisors and PhD candidates, it will allow us to research it and share our findings with the sector more widely.

The topic of the PhDs is social justice and quality and so their studies will contribute to our understandings of this important issue, discussed further on the 'About the project', 'What our plans are' and 'Next steps' pages of this site. But we're also hoping that the project approach will contribute to social justice and quality in doctoral education far beyond those making up the project team.

If you'd like to read more about our initial preparatory phase proposal, you're welcome to read it below.