Exploring the purpose of postgraduate education in South Africa

This series of videos emerges from the Enabling Quality Postgraduate Education project, which brings together Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Directors of Research, Directors of Postgraduate Studies, and Deans to reflect with postgraduate scholars on quality in postgraduate education.

In this video, the focus is on the purpose of postgraduate education. There are a number of private and public goods associated with postgraduate study: the individual becomes more knowledgeable and more employable, they are able to contribute their knowledge to society, the knowledge created can benefit people and the planet. But these purposes of postgraduate education are often in tension with the commodification of knowledge and the enormous pressures on candidates to complete in regulation time.