Doctoral education in South Africa: ambitions and challenges

The South African government has expressed its ambition to substantially increase the number of doctoral graduates by 2030. Graduates will be prepared for a world that is more connected in both cultural and economic terms and contribute to the country’s economic development and global competitiveness. However, the current capacity of universities is insufficient to deliver on this ambition and should be expanded, while international mobility brings up questions related to brain drain.

The South African government is calling for a major increase in the number of doctoral graduates by 2030 and this ambitious target poses a challenge to universities. A 2010 study on how to meet the demands for higher-level skills in an emerging economy explores the blockages and challenges experienced in the field of doctoral education and forms the basis of ongoing debates and initiatives on the topic.

One important initiative focuses on developing a pool of supervisors as this is a key concern in terms of the relatively low percentages of academic staff with doctoral qualifications at the various institutions, the lack of transformation and the aging cohort of supervisors. Although much has been done to increase the pool of potential supervisors, the institutional capacity to supervise the 22 498 doctoral students (2016) remains a challenge.

Closely related to the ambitious increase of doctoral graduates in South Africa is their mobility within the regional and international context. In 2005, the profile of doctoral graduates in South Africa showed that 75% were South African. The international group consisted of the other SADC countries (8%), other African countries (9.25%), Europe (3.75%) and the rest of the world (4 %). By 2016, 44% of the 2 916 doctoral graduates were international with 19.6% of the total from the other SADC countries and 20.2% of the total from other African countries.

The ecosystem for doctoral education in the rest of Africa is challenging and issues include: the lack of funding for research and doctoral studies, national and regional priorities, academics prefer consultancy, a lack of doctoral innovation, low institutional capacity, the lack of academic freedom, poor quality supervision and a lack of infrastructure, including ICT.

The developmental role of universities, and the doctorate specifically, in Africa is well understood, however, many of the African countries do not have sufficient resources to invest in the capacity to produce doctoral candidates. There is anecdotal evidence that a large proportion of the African doctoral graduates in South Africa who return to their countries intend to work in higher education institutes.