Dissecting PhD Sagas – III

Without academic writing training, Nepali universities will continue to shortchange our doctoral students.

In the first instalment of this column published four weeks ago, I argued that institutionalising the requirement of already published research articles as part of the application package to enter PhD programmes works as a barrier to entry for potential applicants. In the second instalment published two weeks ago, I argued that although the “PhD by coursework” modality was the right approach, current staff shortages and the lack of teaching competence and teamwork at Tribhuvan University (TU) resulted in poor delivery of coursework for doctoral students. Although I used TU as an example, the same argument applies to all Nepali universities that have adopted the “PhD by coursework” modality. In this piece, I point out that Nepali universities dispensing PhDs in the social sciences and humanities must put more emphasis on academic writing training than it does now.