South Africa is falling way short of enhancing its research and development capacity due to its low output of PHD graduates, fears Science and Technology Minister, Naledi Pandor.
During the unveiling of her Department’s Budget, she told parliament that the country was producing too few doctoral graduates.
“The National Development Plan sets a target of 100,000 PhDs by 2030, to improve research and innovation capacity. In order to reach this target we need to train 6000 PhDs per annum.
“We now produce just over 1800 PhDs per year. To train 6000 a year will cost an additional R5.8 billion a year,’ she lamented.Doctoral research is considered essential for developing the technological innovations needed to attract investment and grow the economy. While the global average spent on research and development is 1.77%.
Due to the lack of research supervision capacity the country could not train doctoral graduates, Pandor pointed out. “We need to support researchers who are capable of supervising post-graduate students, and to create appropriate incentives for students to remain in the system up to doctoral level.”