The State of Doctoral Education in Social Sciences in Uganda: Experiences and Challenges of Doctoral Training at Mbarara University of Science and Technology 2003 - 2010

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenges and experiences which social science students in Africa undergo to complete the PhD program.  Focusing on Mbarara University of Science and Technology, the paper present that many students who register on the PhD program in Africa, are unable to complete the program in the stipulated time.   The paper identifies that the challenges which students face can be divided into two categories; institutional and individual students and the supervisors.  At the institutional level it involves the nature and the context of the program.  This involves lack of resources to support an overall learning environment.  At the individual level, the challenges include student and supervisor challenges which they face at individual levels and how they affect completion. To get to discuss these issues, I held one focus group discussion with 7 students enrolled for the PhD program and 1 fresh graduate of PhD at the Faculty of development studies Mbarara University of science and Technology, critical literature review and a review of some of the external supervisors reports for the PhD students who have made an attempt to submit their final dissertations. Basing on the data from the sources identified above, the paper concludes that for students to complete the PhD program, the above challenges need to be addressed especially by establishing training programs in the region and creation of a better learning environment for the PhD students. The issues discussed in this paper and solutions provided provides a basis for improving the training programs in Universities. It is argued in this paper that solutions to completing PhD programs especially in the social sciences will depend on strengthening foundational courses especially in Methodology and theories and most importantly critical thinking.

Keywords: Research, University, Post graduate Training, Research University