Quality of Doctoral Education in South Africa: The Perspective of Doctoral Students at a University of Technology

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to test if the challenges in ensuring quality in a doctoral education are true for students enrolled for a doctoral degree in a University of Technology in South Africa. Doctoral students dependent on strong academic support from their institutions and employers to successfully complete their course. Established traditional universities in South Africa have the advantage of high income, low student ratios and permanent staff with doctorates which aid doctoral production. However, newly established Universities of Technology in South Africa are still building capacity to address these concerns. An exploratory study aided with quantitative analysis in the form of descriptive statistics is deployed among the registered doctoral students on the kind of support they get from their employers as well as their institutions. This paper showcases a thorough literature review on the topic and identified that there is very little research on the contributions of Universities of Technology with regards to doctoral student production. Key results from the study show that 75% of the students are registered for a part time study with 66% employed on a fulltime basis. Of this only 40% can meet their study tasks on time. Other key findings show that majority of students have access to courses conducted by the institution with respect to proposal writing, literature review and research methodology courses albeit it is not directly related to their field of study.