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Prof Bismark Tyobeka
North-West University Vice Chancellor Professor Bismark Tyobeka says the University will now provide 100% funding support for qualifying post-graduate students to address the declining uptake of post-graduate studies.
This follows a concern that all 26 Public Universities in South Africa are registering a low number of locals at Master’s Degree and PhD levels.
A national review of South African doctoral qualifications conducted by the Council on Higher Education between 2020 and 2021 also supported this, indicating that 56.7% of PhD graduates are international students.
Professor Tyobeka says, “The reality of the situation is that the jobs are very scarce. So instead of finishing your honours and go and stay at home looking for a job and finish another 24 months looking for a job, in that 24 months you would have finished your master degree and you would have started your first year of a PhD so we are saying we are going to up the financial assistance for masters and PhD in particular to cover everything so that if you do not see prospects of a job immediately after you finish your honours or your undergraduate, continue with us.”
The university, in partnership with the official Youth engagement group of the G20 – Y20, hosted a Post Graduate Day at the NWU Mahikeng Campus, under the theme “Transdisciplinary and Transformative Research, Building Sustainable Futures”.
The event focused on the importance of research, particularly from young scholars and how their findings may shape G20 member states.
Tyobeka says, “There is a concern that we have fewer postgraduate students, especially at the Master’s, PhD levels. Most of our post-graduate students are either from our Potchefstroom campus, which is mostly white or the black ones that are there mostly are foreign nationals. It is a problem that we see replicated across all 26 public universities in our country and one of the reasons for that is because most of these students, especially black ones, come from very poor families where families expect them to finish school and go and work.”
Biochemistry Master’s Student at the North West University’s Mahikeng Campus, Tsholofelo Moloi, says the cause of this declining uptake of post-graduate studies is a lack of funding and a quest for employment.
“From my experience and the experience of people that are around me, funding has been an issue. It’s not that we don’t have appetite, most of us are here, we are driven, we are so passionate about what we do and we want to actually go further, but the financial support is not really that conducive for us to be able to get to our PhDs or post-doctoral.”
