Towards developing a collaborative PhD program across ARUA member universities: experiences from the University of Mauritius

Abstract

This report highlights the status of PhD education in Mauritius, using the University of Mauritius as a case study. The report provides an overview of the country's socio-economic status, which has a bearing on how universities organise PhD programmes and which may influence the direction of the design of collaborative programmes as envisaged by ARUA. The report details the national and institutional policy and operational frameworks for PhD programmes in Mauritius, the nature of student access and progression policies across the programmes, opportunities for designing collaborative arrangements, and challenges that need to be addressed. The report is divided into five sections. The next section provides an overview of Mauritius's socio-economic and political dynamics. Section two provides a brief description of the higher education landscape in Mauritius. Section three delves into the case study of the university and the two selected programmes. Section four presents the findings from the data collected from the two case study programmes. Section five provides some recommendations and conclusions