Charles Ambler, Dean-in-Residence, Council of Graduate Schools

In March of this year the Kenya-based Business Daily headlined a leading story, “why only one of 10 PhD students in Kenya complete their studies.” If the percentage is extreme, the theme is certainly familiar to U.S. graduate deans. The article goes on to list a series concerns that graduate educators in the U.S. would find unsurprising, including insufficient funding and lack of evidence of the impact of doctoral programs on research productivity.

This story appears at a time when the number of students from sub-Saharan African countries attending universities in the U.S., Europe and China has shown steady growth, while enrollments of graduate students from India and China in American universities has declined. This growth of African enrollments has occurred in spite of the challenges that many students face in finding funding and obtaining visas.

Yet, few universities have engaged in active recruitment of African graduate students, in part reflecting a broad lack of knowledge of the African educational context and its enormous diversity. Few members of the graduate education community are aware that African graduates have many options for pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in their home countries or within the region. And it remains the case that many African graduates continue to prefer to travel overseas for PhDs. Although data across the African continent can be difficult to come by, many African countries and universities have made graduate education a priority. For example, more than 7,000 students are currently enrolled in PhD programs in Kenya, while South African universities typically graduate more than 2,000 PhDs each year.

In line with the global mission of the Council of Graduate Schools, I am spending the 2019-2020 academic year as Dean-in-Residence investigating the graduate education landscape in sub-Saharan Africa and exploring opportunities for CGS (and counterpart organizations in the United Kingdom and Europe) to collaborate with graduate education leaders at institutions and in organizations on the Continent to strengthen graduate programs. Such collaborations will ultimately enhance opportunities for educational and research partnerships between institutions and graduate programs in Africa and universities in North America. Supporting graduate program development in African universities will also in the long run increase the number and quality of graduates—some of whom will seek graduate education opportunities in the United States.

Africa’s premier universities have offered graduate degrees for many years, although these tended to be restricted in size and scope, and in the case of South Africa, distorted by the apartheid educational system. Recent decades have seen rapid expansions in higher education across the continent, both in terms of the numbers of institutions and the numbers of students enrolled. Where previously higher education had been a state monopoly, there has recently been a dramatic growth in private institutions, many church-affiliated, and a number of which have emerged as graduate education leaders.

In 2018, The British Council and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD,) working with the African Network for Internationalisation of Education (ANIE,) released the results of separate surveys of PhD education in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Ethiopia. Although there is a great deal of variation, several themes emerge in PhD education across these countries. All face an acute shortage of PhD-trained faculty, a situation that will only worsen as university education expands. Both the numbers of people engaged in research and the amount per capita invested in education is in each case well below international averages. A lack of support for doctoral students in many cases contributes to the high attrition rates cited in Kenya. For the most part, programs adhere to the “degree by research” doctoral model rather than the U.S. coursework model, but the report indicates that “a salient feature in each country context was the challenge of adequate supervision.” Outside of South Africa there is little indication that there are mechanisms in place for universities to address these and other critical issues collectively.

The initial focus of this project is to develop regional graduate education networks that in collaboration with CGS may serve as the basis for sharing best practices and advocating for support of graduate education and ultimately evolve into more permanent organizations. There are undoubtedly many in the graduate education community in the U.S. who have particular expertise or interest, and we hope that you will join with us in this important initiative. Contact: Charles Ambler, cambler@cgs.nche.edu.