Abstract:
Academic staff shortage has become a huge challenge for African universities, and no respite seems to be in sight. In fact, observers of the higher education scene on the continent unanimously identify this issue as one of the most critical challenges to the mission of these institutions. They contend that, if urgent concerted action is not undertaken soon enough to address the problem, the African academy will not only lose its ability to produce the requisite number of personnel to support the countries’ human resource needs, but the quality of intellectual life will continue to erode. The foregoing concerns call for evaluating how well African institutions are developing the next generation of academics to combat the decline and thereby boosting academic staff capacity and reinvigorating intellectual life. A critical area for such efforts, and the focus of this article, is postgraduate training. The sample is made up of 15 universities and seven countries that are members of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa

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Postgraduate studies in Africa: the looming crisis