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.
