PhD Production Crisis

PhD study is the foundation for creating and developing knowledge at individual, organizational, and national levels. Unfortunately, many universities worldwide have poor quality PhD production – even in the United Kingdom, which has a high quality education system. Due to high competition and the notion of the autonomous university, university executive boards are forced to create plans to entice a multitude of students, including PhD students. Consequently, the rigorousness of PhD admission decreases in order to accept as many students as possible, leading to much criticism as to their quality.

The acceptance of poor English-skill applicants
According to the stiff competition, many UK universities tend to accept foreign PhD students who can pay full tuition fees, no matter what their English proficiency levels are. As a consequence, PhD student quality drops, and ultimately, poor quality research underpins the knowledge creation model due to a lack of English proficiency to read and write research papers.

Limited scholarship, resources and manpower
Nowadays, PhD students in UK universities receive little support due to the excessive number of PhD students. At the same time, universities do not provide adequate academic environments and scholarships. In addition, due to a plethora of students, professors must inevitably be thesis supervisors for more PhD students. This implies that PhD students are not closely supervised and the quality of their research deteriorates markedly so that their papers cannot be published, especially in mathematical disciplines.

For these reasons, it is certain that poor quality PhD education in the UK has occurred in part due to prioritization for greater profit rather than greater quality, but the root of this problem is the trend of the autonomous university, which forces many universities to increase their PhD student numbers in order to gain more revenue and “survive.”

Many universities in Thailand will also face the same situation since they are forced to be autonomous universities. Accordingly, many faculties and institutes plan to open “profitable” programmes, including “profitable” PhD programmes, in order to increase their revenue. In 2007, there were 49 Thai public universities which had a PhD programme. From 2004 to 2007, the number of new PhD students (excluded those at Ramkhamhaeng University) were 2,114; 3,098; 3,433 and 3,888 respectively – In other words, the number of PhD students doubled in only four years. An increase to the number of PhD students will tend to impoverish the quality of PhD students in universities that fail to distribute resources and manpower efficiently, though not in universities that are well prepared.

While increasing the number of PhD students in Thailand is necessary, their quality is also crucial. Thus, universities should focus on the quality of PhD production by being rigorous in PhD admission, and by providing PhD students with enough resources and professors. All in all, to prevent an excess supply of PhD graduate labour, the Government and the Ministry of Education should set a target for PhD production according to the potential, national development direction, and labour market demand of each university.

Dr Kriengsak Chareonwongsak
Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School , Harvard University
kriengsak@kriengsak.com, kriengsak.com, drdancando.com