Postgraduate study leaders from SA universities assemble to share ideas
The round-table layout at the recent colloquium on Exploring Preparedness for Postgraduate Studies was distinct from the typical straight-seat-rows format that people tend to expect at this type of event.
Professor Stephanie Burton, one of the project coordinators of the Enabling Quality Postgraduate Education (EQPE) project housed in Rhodes University’s Centre for Postgraduate Studies, said this was intentional to encourage discussion — a key feature of the two-day colloquium.
Ms Asiphe Mxalisa, Programme director, a lecturer in the Centre for Postgraduate Studies at Rhodes University and a PhD candidate in the institution’s Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL), reiterated this in her welcome address.
Elaborating further on the role of discussion and sharing ideas, EQPE’s other project coordinator, Professor Sioux McKenna (left), Higher Education Studies in the Centre for Postgraduate Studies at Rhodes University, said she hoped the two half-days of the colloquium on 17 and 18 March, would be “very interactive, very collegial, a real opportunity for deliberation”.
Postgraduate education, she said, “often happens alongside all your other responsibilities and meetings and deadlines, and, before you know it, time has passed. It is important to have this time out of those busy lives to think about what postgraduate education is for.”
She said the “preparedness” in the colloquium theme sought to examine “what is postgraduate education, who must be prepared, and what structures do we need to be prepared? I’m hoping we can collaboratively start to answer these questions.”
Professor McKenna then posted a three-point questionnaire about postgraduate preparedness on menti.com, an online platform.
Where zero referred to “strongly disagree” and “5” represented “strongly agree”, these were the questions and their average responses:
- Our universities are sufficiently prepared for offering postgraduate education – 3.3
- Our supervisors are sufficiently prepared for offering postgraduate education – 3
- Our students are sufficiently prepared for offering postgraduate education 2.7
Responses were received from close to half of the approximately 100 delegates in attendance, who represented almost all of South Africa’s 26 public universities, a few private higher education institutions, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and Universities South Africa (USAf), the umbrella body.
“I’m not seeing a general view that our universities are sufficiently prepared, our supervisors are sufficiently prepared, or our students are sufficiently prepared,” said Professor McKenna.
About 100 delegates attended the EQPE colloquium, representing South Africa’s 26 public universities, some private higher education providers, the DHET and USAf.
Colloquium link to a new CHE Qualifications Sub-Framework
Professor McKenna noted that a recent document published by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) was relevant to the colloquium’s discussions and central to the work of many attending delegates. The document is a draft Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF), which people can comment on until 30 April. The CHE is a statutory body that advises the Minister on higher education policy and oversees quality assurance.
Titled the CHE and SAQA (South African Qualifications Authority) Joint Communique 1 of 2025: Re-registration of HEQSF-aligned qualifications on the National Qualifications Framework, McKenna said the framework makes it easier for the sector to share resources and work collaboratively.
“That’s very much at odds with how we position ourselves as universities, as competitors with each other, as a desperate bid to make our way up the ranking, as if we are all one against the other. Whereas in any country with limited resources like ours, it makes sense for us to share resources as best as possible,” she said.
She said the draft HEQSF seemed to allow for, or make more explicit, opportunities for credit accumulation and transfer.
“So, it should be possible for universities to say, ‘We want our students to study this particular module for their master’s, or PhD. We don’t offer it. We’re going to send our Rhodes students to Nelson Mandela University (NMU) for that one, often online’. This was about a postgraduate student enrolled at one university, completing a specific module required in that programme at another institution, and having that module counted toward their qualification.
“The HEQSF doesn’t spell out the messy details of payments, or is it going to be quid pro quo? That’s going to be up to us as a sector. But what it makes clear is that we should be collaborating far more than we currently are.”
The HEQSF addresses a 2024 colloquium issue
She said the draft HEQSF also addressed something that had been a big point of discussion at the 2024 EQPE colloquium – that all types of doctorates could have up to 120 credits of coursework. “We’re hoping that will be gazetted before the end of this year,” she said.
She said the desirability of coursework “came up time and time again” last year, “not as a one-size-fits-all requirement, but rather in certain programmes where, because it’s transdisciplinary, or because students come into the PhD with perhaps not having a master’s in that field, or because you want to ensure your doctoral graduates have expertise in their topic but also, for all sorts of reasons, a stronger understanding of whatever field they’re in.
“I’m delighted that that is about to become a reality.”
She thanked USAf for its ongoing support with EQPE’s colloquia and its online seminars.
USAf’s Community of Practice for Postgraduate Education (CoP PGES) hosted the colloquium in collaboration with the EQPE project, funded by DHET. The CoP PGES, chaired by Professor Stephanie Burton, is housed within the Advancing Early Career Researchers and Scholars (AECRS) programme, which USAf manages with financial support from the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Gillian Anstey is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.
