Capacity Building for Doctoral Provision in Pakistan
Overview of the Outcomes of the Key Trainers’ 3rdWorkshop for Doctoral Supervisors
HEC Islamabad, 7 – 9 February 2017
This workshop built on those held in Islamabad in May 2015 and November 2016, in both of which the same nine senior university personnel had participated, and which led to the delivery, at the request of the HEC in November 2016, of a draftDoctoral Research Supervision Policy and a
Training Syllabus for Doctoral Research Supervisors.
As a result of those workshops, and at the request of the HEC, it was determined that these nine participants should be further developed as a core group of Key Trainers who, in turn, would train a wider group of Master Trainers to cascade the training of doctoral supervisors into universities right across Pakistan.
The three core elements of the February 2017 workshop were as follows:
- Documentation
It became very clear during the workshop that, not only in the interests of national quality assurance but also for the ‘protection’ of the host institution, the supervisor and the doctoral student, and in order to enhance timely throughput, it is essential that doctoral programmes are underpinned by clear and comprehensivedocumentation that is readily available to all concerned.
As a training tool for this workshop, the facilitation team gave all participants a USB (kindly provided by UCL) containing the following documents:
- Guidance Note for Applications for Educational Oversight by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (in the UK) (QAA)
- Doctoral Degree Characteristics (QAA)
- Doctoral Research Students: what should they expect from their academic experience? (QAA)
- UCL Graduate Research Degrees
- UCL Code of Practice 2016/17
This workshop recognises that a Code of Practice is essential for all doctoral supervisors and recommends that the above documents be shared with all universities in Pakistan so that they may be used as guidelines or templates should the HEIs wish to adapt them for their own use in developing their own institutional Codes of Practice.
The HEC should also feel free, should it wish to do so, to adopt, adapt or reject any part of any of the above documents for its own use. It was profoundly helpful to have members of the HEC not only present at but also participating in the workshop as they were able to identify areas in which additional or amended documentation might be helpful.
To note: it became clear during the workshop that the participants valued the opportunities to provide feed-back on the content and processes that were modelled. It is therefore recommended that feed-back into the whole training processbe encouraged both from the trainers and trainees so that it becomes an iterative and self-improving process.
- Rolling out the Framework for the Cascade Training Programmes
As described in para two above, the intention of the HEC is that the training of doctoral supervisors should be rolled out as a cascade programme:
Nine Key Trainers
These 9 key trainers run workshops to train groups of Master Trainers at various HEC locations throughout Pakistan
These Master Trainers proceed to train Cluster-Based Trainers of at least two participants from each university/HEI in Pakistan They, in turn, will run programmes to enhance the capacity of their colleaguesto perform as doctoral supervisors
The Key Trainers, alongside the HEC and the British Council, which is generously co-supporting this programme, will need to determine such things as:
- who the participants should be
- who provides the administrative/organisational support
- workable time-lines
- practicalities (e.g. workshop venues, accommodation, transport, catering)
- costings and funding
- Training Programmes
This paper is being written before the session in which the training programmes themselves are discussed and designed; but please refer to the above-mentioned/attached draft Training Syllabus for Doctoral Research Supervisors to find the elements which underpin this programme.
08/02/17