UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series
Capacity building using PhD education in Africa
Mindel van de Laar, Shivani Achrekar, Lucy L. Larbi & Friederike Rühmann #2016-068Globally the field of doctoral education is changing, with a move
towards more internationalisation and away from traditional education.
More PhD educational programmes use blended and e-learning elements and
have an increasing number of working professionals enrolled in a PhD, or
PhD students with jobs engaged in writing a dissertation. In Sub-Saharan
Africa, the PhD scene reflects this change. Yet, not much is known about
PhD capacity in Africa. While in terms of scientific output the
continent is left behind, and thus doctoral education is an area to
focus on, research on the effectiveness of doctoral education, and how
to improve the educational offering is lacking. In this study, we offer
an update of the literature related to doctoral education in Africa, an
overview of the needs in the field according to both African PhD fellows
and their supervisors, and a discussion on the role of e-learning
innovations in supporting capacity building.
Keywords: Doctoral education, community of learning, Sub-Sahara Africa, E-Learning
JEL Classification: I23, I24, I25, I26, O15, O55
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