Supervising Doctoral Students in South African Higher Education

This chapter explores the constitution of doctoral supervisors and the ways they adopt to themselves in their discharge of supervisory duties. The chapter uses diverse contexts to understand duties in diverse and complex contexts such as South Africa. The strategies and actions invoked by supervisors to ensure their success in their supervisory endeavours are explored. One of the key arguments of the chapter is that under the current environment, doctoral supervisors in South Africa are marred by a complex, fluid and fast-transforming environment. Such an environment requires strategies and practices that transcend conservative approaches of doctoral supervision that are usually associated with mainstream scholarship. This chapter presents two major themes. First, the problem facing current supervision practice relates to its failure to account for South African diversity and contextual complexity. In particular, the circumstances of the students and the environment in which doctoral education takes place becomes a central issue. Apartheid produced a complex higher education environment that calls for a more context-sensitive pedagogy of doctoral supervision. Second, following consideration of the profiles of current doctoral candidates, exclusive reliance on conventional modes of supervision without embracing broader strategies such as extra coaching, mentoring, pastoral care and other forms of guidance and support is problematic.