This book offers a unique perspective on doctoral supervision in southern Africa, showcasing the potential of scholarly reflection. The aim is to share the benefits with a wider audience, catalyzing the use of scholarly literature in global doctoral supervision. By drawing on the field's literature, it fosters informed and systematic reflection to transform supervision. With a focus on deep development and affordability, this book presents a model that enhances the quality of doctoral graduates. It builds on collaborative work and analysis of supervision experiences, engaging with key literature and exploring facets of practice. Through personal exemplifications, authors highlight complexities and commonalities across cultural contexts, inspiring systematic improvement in supervision. A valuable resource for academics, researchers, and practitioners involved in doctoral supervision, this book provides evidence-based insights and creative approaches to pedagogy. It encourages the systematic enrichment of doctoral supervisors worldwide.

An excellent collection of diverse and deeply reflective perspectives. All offer insights into the multiple challenges confronted in improving the quality and depth of postgraduate supervision, increasing throughput, and dealing with complexity. What is also affirmed is the importance of individual capability in supervision that is developed and nurtured over time, and through arduous effort. The book will be of value to novice supervisors and to more experienced ones. Policy makers, planners and administrators looking to enlarge their understanding of the postgraduate terrain in all its complexities will find the mix of theoretical and practical lenses through which the topic is approached particularly illuminating. - Professor Narend Baijnath, Chief Executive Officer, Council on Higher Education

Worldwide, in Africa and in South Africa, the importance of the doctorate has increased disproportionately in relation to its share of the overall graduate output over the past decade. This heightened attention has not only been concerned with the traditional role of the PhD, namely the provision of future academics; rather, it has focused on the increasingly important role that higher education and, particularly, high-level skills is perceived to play in national development and the knowledge economy. This book is unique in the area of research into doctoral studies because it draws on a large number of studies conducted by the Centre of Higher Education Trust (CHET) and the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST), as well as on studies from the rest of Africa and the world. In addition to the historical studies, new quantitative and qualitative research was undertaken to produce the evidence base for the analyses presented in the book. The findings presented in Doctoral Education in South Africa pose anew at least six tough policy questions that the country has struggled with since 1994, and continues to struggle with, if it wishes to gear up the system to meet the target of 5 000 new doctorates a year by 2030. Discourses framed around the single imperatives of growth, efficiency, transformation or quality will not, however, generate the kind of policy discourses required to resolve these tough policy questions effectively. What is needed is a change in approach that accommodates multiple imperatives and allows for these to be addressed simultaneously.

Drawing on original survey data, reflective accounts, and case studies of supervisory practice in different disciplines, Doctoral Supervision and Research Culture explores the supervisor experience and demonstrates the craft, compassion and consistency required of supervisors in responding to different researcher’s needs. Based on empirical data and using the voice of research supervisors, the authors throw a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities supervisors face in supporting doctoral researchers through to successful PhD completion. This book acts as an invitation to institutions, funders, industry and academics to review what, and how they support PhD provision and to elevate the status of supervision practice. It shows how research cultures - disciplinary, institutional and individual - affect the supervisory experience and highlight the challenges that supervisors face, as well as the rewards that successful supervisory relationships bring. It is also a celebration of the contribution that doctoral researchers and all those who support research make to society. Designed to provide opportunities for sharing of practice across disciplines and the sector, Doctoral Supervision and Research Culture will be of interest to both new and experienced supervisors, to staff and researcher developers in institutions, and to funders, policy makers and senior management in universities who seek to improve and enhance the supervisory experience for all agents.

The book explores concerns about the lack of higher education transformation around issues of equity, curriculum reform, language and race, and how students navigate higher education complexities. Students' self-reflective abilities, creativity and pragmatic approaches to surviving and succeeding are indicators that postgraduate student success is as much internally as externally determined. Each chapter speaks from a uniquely South African perspective. The editors have tried to remain true to the voice of each contributor, while simultaneously providing a coherent body of scholarly work.

With a wide range of international contributors, this book surveys how the main doctoral awarding countries across the globe define criteria for the eligibility of supervisors. It compares and contrasts their approaches, comments upon their robustness, and identifies examples of good practice. The quality of supervision has been shown to be a major factor in determining the learning experiences of doctoral scholars and their chances of success. However, relatively little is known about the ways in which doctoral supervisors are selected for their roles, supported to perform them, and recognised for their efforts. This book looks at these matters in 21 major doctoral awarding countries, collectively responsible for over 90% of global doctoral awards. Each case study constitutes a stand-alone contribution to the literature on doctoral supervision in that country and: provides a brief introduction to the national context of doctoral education; outlines policies and procedures for the selection of supervisors; discusses the support and development available to supervisors and gives examples of good practice; comments on if and how supervision is recognised and rewarded. Written by a distinguished international team of authors, The Making of Doctoral Supervisors will be of interest to all those engaged in doctoral education including policy makers, program leaders, supervisors, administrators, and scholars in the field.

The book provides a thorough overview of Institutional Research (IR) ? i.e. applied higher education research undertaken within universities ? in South Africa. It is a collection of essays focusing on the character and institutional setting of IR; how IR is embedded into the mechanisms of steering, shaping and reforming higher education; and what the major results were of IR in select thematic areas. The book is a valuable resource for higher education researchers and social researchers in South Africa interested in higher education. It ÿalso deserves to be read by practitioners and policymakers in the field of higher education in South Africa. It serves as an interesting case study for higher education researchers all over the world.