« DEVELOPING A TOOLBOX FOR MANAGING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIVE PhD PROGRAMMES »
Integral to the internationalisation of PhD studies is the idea of student-supervisor interaction taking place across borders, nationalities and cultures. In addition, other stakeholders play a role when PhDs are internationalized. These stakeholders are located in different societal contexts, institutional contexts and strategies, disciplinary contexts and individual contexts. Given these different contexts, participation in the higher education system of different countries can sometimes mean that different and occasionally contradictory, norms, rules and regulations, legislative frameworks and educational traditions come into play. Indeed, this is true even at an inter-institutional level with in South Africa, let alone between countries. There are therefore a number of important considerations to take into account in order to safeguard the interests of all parties. This training workshop will look in some detail at international PhD engagement through the mode of joint enrollment at different partner institutions. It will seek to map the elements that need consideration when contemplating enrolling PhDs in this way and aim to provide a template or guideline for South African partners to use. The training workshop will also look at some specific challenges that impact in the different contexts, from the macro to the micro level. In conclusion, the workshop will also allow for some alternative models of supervisory training to be shared since adequate supervisory capacity development in the country is a particular pressure point in the South African context.