The Experiences and Needs of African Doctoral Students: Current Conditions and Future Support

‘Next generation’ issues are attracting considerable attention in higher education (HE) policy and programming. This is particularly true in Africa, where depleted academic capacity, insufficient levels of doctorate-qualified staff, and the steady retirement of many experienced lecturers and researchers place a particular urgency on identifying, training and nurturing new cohorts of research and teaching staff across the continent’s HE and research institutions. Recent contributions to the debate have also raised concerns about the extent to which doctoral study has been ‘casualised’, interrupted by the demands of employment, and hampered by inadequate supervision and support to develop and undertake research, resulting in fragmentary research and long times to completion. This paper presents the results of a survey of African and European doctoral students alongside a desk review of current funding programmes, bringing new evidence to this debate, particularly around what it is to be a doctoral student in different regions of Africa and how this is currently supported. In doing so, it highlights issues to be considered in future programmes to strengthen doctoral study.