This document discusses e-supervision as a way to support doctoral studies in Africa. It outlines some of the challenges facing doctoral education in Africa, including a shortage of PhDs, quality issues, low completion rates, and lack of international exposure. E-supervision could help address these challenges by connecting supervisors and students regardless of location and making use of technology. The benefits of e-supervision include providing access to renowned experts, enriching the quality and experience of doctoral students, and strengthening research capacity. However, developing e-supervision further would require establishing guidelines for professional conduct between e-supervisors and students and building capacity around technological skills. The document recommends creating an e-supervision framework to define

1. KENYATTA UNIVERSITY
E - Supervision to Support the
Development of Doctoral Studies
in Africa
Prof. Olive M. Mugenda, PhD, CBS
Vice-Chancellor
October, 2013

2. Introduction
 Research based knowledge is a key
component of development and an
answer to the search for solutions to
global challenges.
 Building research capacity in developing
countries is thus central to their
development
 Doctoral education has the potential to
develop highly adaptive experts for
dynamic knowledge economies
2

3.  Preparing Africa for a Renaissance
especially concerning its challenges,
requires high level research and innovation
that can be founded in doctoral education
 The quality of doctoral education must
remain under constant monitoring
 Doctoral training has tremendous catalytic
potential to advance human development in
the 21st century
3

4.  Quality doctoral training programs are the
seedbeds for future knowledge growers,
policy shapers, and academics. An
important feature of postgraduate training
is doctoral studies
 With the realization of the growing
importance of research and talent,
governments and society at large alike are
concerned that investments in doctoral
education are appropriately managed
4

5. The Development of Doctoral
Education in Africa
5

6. Doctoral studies in Africa take different
forms depending on:
 the colonial experience of the country,
the historical and cultural backgrounds
of each institution,
the directions set by the respective
leadership teams
After gaining independence, the character
of doctoral study in African universities is
important to note
6

7. The target of initial doctoral programmes
was to enhance the qualifications of
teaching staff in the university:
– doctoral students are often already
employed as members of university
academic staff
– doctoral work part time, or in their own
time
– the age profile is typically older between
30 to 50
7

9. In order to support the scant efforts of
African universities to produce Doctoral
graduates, a number of collaborative
programmes were developed :
African Economic Research Consortium
(AERC)
Consortium for Advanced Research Training
in Africa (CARTA
African Doctoral Academy at the University of
Stellenbosch
9

10.  Pan African University – with nodes in
East, West, North & South Africa focusing
on doctoral training in allocated disciplines
 The German HE cooperation agency DAAD supports
a
number
of
collaborative
PhD
programmes, run in conjunction with individual
German and African universities
10

11. Challenges facing doctoral
education in Africa
11

12. 1) Shortage of PhDs in Universities
The number of professors in a university is
significant as it reflects the ability of the
institution to offer high quality education and
leadership in research
Growth in academic staff has not kept pace
with student enrolments in Africa
Huge expansions in student enrolment are
increasingly overwhelming African institutions
in the absence of a corresponding increase in
academic staff capacity
12

13. Source: University websites

14. Qualifications of Teaching Staff in selected
Disciplines: Global Comparison of Universities
Selected Disciplines
Mathematics
Chemistry Economics Political
Science
PhD
No PhD
PhD
No
PhD
PhD
No
PhD
PhD
No
PhD
MIT
62
0
45
0
61
0
32
0
Cambridge
105
0
76
0
41
0
48
2
Oxford
143
0
94
0
56
0
116
0
Cape Town 43
3
25
0
34
0
12
4
Ghana
4
5
16
3
6
18
13
9
Nairobi
21
15
26
12
-
-
8
7
14
Institutions
Source: University websites

15. PhD enrolment by University & gender , 2012

16.  Some
disciplines
e.g.
Medicine,
Engineering & Actuarial science
lack
capacity for PhD supervision
 Advanced research in these disciplines
especially in Africa is fairly low compared
to
other
disciplines
like
Arts
and
Humanities
16

17. Enrolment of Doctoral Students by
University & Discipline, 2012

18. 2) Quality of PhDs
 The quality of an institution of higher learning
depends to a large extent on the quality of its
academic staff
 Likewise, the quality of doctoral students
depends heavily on the quality of the
supervision they get & the quality of
supervisors
18

20. 3) Low completion rates
 In most postgraduate programmes in
African universities, the length of time it
takes to complete & the low completion
rate serve to discourage prospective
doctoral candidates from pursuing training
20

21. 4) Lack of international exposure of faculty
 Most faculty in African universities obtained
their three degrees from the same university
& eventually end up being employed by the
university
 This has become more pronounced today
 The quality of faculty is, to a large extent,
dependent on the international exposure
acquired in graduate & post doctoral
education
21

22. Factors Impacting on
Doctoral education in Africa
22

23. 1) Lack of Institutional and programme
policies
Institutional policy as well as discipline
expectations has an important role to play in
the attainment of quality doctoral research
supervision policies; policies, codes and
structures for frequent review of doctoral
research; policies and structures for quality
control
23

24.  a clear supervision policy is central to the
timely completion and to the quality of
doctoral research
 The policy should spell out in detail the
responsibilities of both the student and the
supervisor
and
delineate
the
consequences for not meeting one’s
responsibilities
24

25. 2) Supervision
 Research supervision is a facilitative
process requiring support and challenge.
 The two primary goals of supervision are
developing research students to become
capable researchers and the achievement
of quality completion
25

26.  supervisors are responsible for providing
satisfactory guidance and mentorship to
the student in defining the research topic,
designing the project, gathering material,
writing and working through drafts and
disseminating their work
26

27.  Supervisors should take a mentoring role;
facilitating access to resources and
opportunities;
providing
information,
protection and sponsorship; stimulating
the acquisition of knowledge; and serving
as a role model.
27

28. 3) Massification of higher education
 There is a high number of people globally,
including in Africa who enroll for doctoral
education
 Shortage of capacity, both human &
resources however impact the quality and
output of doctoral studies
28

29. e-supervision to enhance
doctoral studies
29

30. How e-supervision works
Most countries in their attempt to reform &
innovate supervision are increasingly
relying on e-supervision to complement
internal supervision and support.
For supervision to be more effective, in the
increasingly
globalized
academic
community it is necessary to embrace esupervision
30

31. E-supervision involves:
Connecting the supervisor and the student
regardless of space
 the use of ICT in undertaking supervision,
including use of chats, skype & videoconferencing
 Involving the e-supervisor in the process
of thesis defense
31

32. Advantages of esupervision
32

33.  E-supervision provides the opportunity to
universities to utilize the services of
renowned experts in their fields without
having to move them around
 E-supervision enriches the quality &
experience of doctoral graduates
 E-supervision by both internal & external
supervisors offers a productive and effective
way to manage and supervise students who
undertake field based research.
33

34.  E supervision has the potential to
strengthen local research capacity &
regional networking by upgrading whole
Ph.D. systems through:
 a holistic and inclusive approach,
By actively involving the institutions’
management, but also administrative
staff, supervisors and Ph.D. students
themselves in the research design.
34

35. • E-supervision extends research and
employment opportunities into remote,
rural, and hard-to-fill locations where an
on-site profession supervisor might not be
available.
• Moreover, it allows access to desirable
research internships where supervision is
either limited or non-existent
35

36. • E-supervision gives higher education
institutions and employers the opportunity
to minimize supervisors’ travel time and
reduce associated transportation costs
while providing a valuable and necessary
service to graduate students and
partnering stakeholders.
36

37. The development of an eSupervision framework
37

38. 1) Lack of a well defined e-supervision
professional code of conduct
 Because e-supervision is a newly
emerging aspect of doctoral studies
supervision, there has been lack of a
well defined code of conduct between
the e-supervisor and the e-supervisee.
38

39.  Inability of the supervisor to know whether
to effect changes on the supervisee’s
document or send them back as track
changes or as another document of
expected improvements exists.
 Lack of a defined manner through which a
supervisor and a supervisee communicate
and maintain their professionalism needs
to be established. This is in terms of how
far an e-supervisor can go in assisting a
student.
39

40. 2) Poor e-Supervisor and e-Supervisee
Technological Knowhow
 This can be explained as a technological
challenge to most e-supervisors and esupervisees that are techno-phobic.
 The fear to embrace technology has made
most of them remain analogue.
40

41. 3) E- Supervision is costly
 Institutions that want to embrace esupervision must invest in the necessary
technology including computers and the
internet
41

42. Recommendations
42

43. Should e-supervision be considered as a
viable strategy to maximize the use of
existing global experts in their fields, there
will be need to develop an e-supervision
framework by interested organizations e.g.
IAU
The e-supervision framework will, among
other things include:
 the role of e-supervisors
Students & e-supervisor relationship

44.  Assurance of quality of e-supervision
 Remuneration of e-supervisors
 Institutional collaboration on e-supervision
 Recognition of e-supervisor work by home
and beneficiary institutions
 Capacity building for e-supervision
44

45. Thank You
Transforming Higher Education….Enhancing Lives
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