Ornate PhDs in Sub-Saharan Africa: Purpose and Quality Concerns

Abstract

In academia, every maneuver follows, or should seem to have a purpose. In view of that, an earned doctoral degree is primarily purposed in training and educating new scholars in preparation for the development of knowledge (Wellington, 2013). For that reason, doctoral training has of recent gained essential global currency (Peak & Blumbach, 2018). Particularly, that has been due to the capacity of doctorates in driving scientific productivity and innovations. Consequently, the number of doctoral programmes and accompanying enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa has risen in the previous decades (Herman & Sehoole, 2018; Peak & Blumbach, 2018). After all, the award of a doctorate confers on the contender a ‘public title that acknowledges their elite status within the academy – a status grounded in the “contribution” of the written thesis and the expectation of a lifetime commitment to research and/or university teaching’ (Holbrook, Bourke, Lovat, & Dally, 2004). To that end, the impact of the doctorate on the future working or non-working life of the doctoral graduate remains a matter of concern (Wellington, 2013).