Sisonke Supervision Mentoring Programme launched

The Strategic Initiatives and Partnership division recently launched the Sisonke Supervision Mentoring programme, which offers opportunities for capacity building to grow CPUT’s cohort of skilled PhD-qualified staff to supervise and mentor novice researchers.

This is due to the steady increase in Master’s and Doctoral post-graduates seen across Africa, and at CPUT, many more well-prepared supervisors are needed. Building sustainable higher education supervision mentoring programmes is necessary to expand the number of doctoral post-graduates who work not only in the higher education and research sector but also in the industrial sector.  

In his presentation, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, Dr David Phaho, outlined the CPUT Postgraduate Roadmap to 2030.   “It’s been a long time coming, but the efforts have been fruitful, and we have an opportunity here to do great things for this institution.”

His talk outlined the following:

• Postgraduate education and CPUT Vision 2030.
• CPUT Postgraduate enrolment trends: 2011 to present.
• CPUT research output trends: 2011 to 2021.
• Postgraduate enrolment in the Covid-19 world. Current state of play.
• Strategic levers to increase postgraduate students: 2021 to 2030
• How do we measure progress and Watchouts?

Phaho said the drive to enhance postgraduate success at CPUT will be primarily informed by the following Vision 2030 Focus areas.

• Innovative teaching and learning and learning environments.
• Smart Research Technology Innovation and Partnerships (RTIP) that is relevant and has an impact.
• Smart internationalisation.
• Innovative engagement and strong links with quintuple helix partners
• And brilliant student engagement and learning experience.

Director of the Research Directorate Office, Prof Dina Burger, said: “What is clear to me is that it’s important to have a system in place, but  it has to do with the soft issues, it has to do with the supervisors and the postgraduate students, predominantly, that journey, that relationship  that is what lies at heart, I think of successful postgraduate education.”

Burger said there was a need to improve the number of postgraduates and academic staff in terms of doctoral degrees.

The guest speaker, Prof Johann Mouton from the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University, said it’s widely recognised that South Africa needed more highly-skilled academics and scientists – both for their reproductive capacity (to train and mentor the next generation of scientists) but also their knowledge productive and innovative capacity.

“What we have witnessed over the past 20 years is a steady increase in demands placed on our universities to grow and transform this capacity. And most of the ‘indicators’ show that the sector has responded admirably – both as far as quantitative outputs (graduates and publications), are concerned, as well as qualitatively (through creative and novel initiatives such as the Sisonke programme).”

In his closing remarks, Vice-Chancellor Prof Chris Nhlapo said he hoped that the Sisonke programme would assist CPUT to navigate the challenges and ensure that all the challenges that result as a consequence of not having the capacity and not having an adequate programme around the training of the supervisors themselves.

“And you are right, Prof Burger, that to a large extent, we rely on how we supervise. So, if my supervisor were not good, I would likely perpetuate that. So I hope that the Sisonke programme is going to draw the line to say henceforth, we will have to build the capacity of our novice researchers, build the capacity of our mid-career researchers, build the capacity of our established researchers because, at every level, there is a need for development… So we are looking forward, as an institution, to say  from the executive management  point of view, we are fully behind you…”

Written by Aphiwe Boyce

Email: boyceap@cput.ac.za