The Status Quo of Doctoral Education in Universities in Zimbabwe
Globally, the importance of highly qualified human resources (holders of doctoral degrees) in providing the requisite skills for knowledge economies is well acknowledged. Sadly, African universities are reportedly lagging behind in terms of satisfying the required quantity and quality of doctoral graduates (Harle, 2013). This study was aimed at providing empirical evidence on the status of doctoral education in Zimbabwe as well as identifying the reasons for the status quo. Documentary evidence and telephonic interviews were used to collect data from all the 15 (40%) registered universities in Zimbabwe. The interviews involved doctoral students enrolled in local universities as well as in foreign universities, aspiring doctoral candidates and senior academics based in local universities.The findings showed that six out of the 15 universities were offering programmes at doctoral level in 2014 giving a share of 0.2%. The combined doctoral degree enrolment was 150 translating to a share of 0.18% of the total student enrolments. A total of 28 people graduated with doctorates from Zimbabwean universities in 2014. Approximately 565 academics from Zimbabwean universities were pursuing doctoral degrees at universities in the region notably in South Africa and Zambia and yet only one university in Zimbabwe enrolled students from the region. The reasons for this state of affairs included the stringent regulatory environment regarding doctoral study in Zimbabwe, shortage of supervisors due to brain drain, unavailability of doctoral programmes at 60% of the local universities and inadequate funding and resources. The study the study recommends that ZIMCHE and universities should revisit their standards and regulations. In addition, government needs to adequately remunerate university staff and provide funding for research and doctoral studies.
Managing the Quality of Cross-Border Higher Education in Zimbabwe
A study on investigating the issues of quality associated with cross-border higher education was carried out using the case study approach focusing on Zimbabwe. The methodology involved document analysis of the cases of regulation and accreditation of cross-border higher education providers and assessment of qualifications acquired from foreign higher education providers as well as interviews with staff from the national quality assurance body. The findings revealed that internationalisation of higher education, does offer several prospects and advantages but it can also negatively impact on the quality of higher education provision if certain activities are left unchecked. These include sub-standard and dubious foreign higher education providers who often enrol students who do not meet the minimum entry requirements as well as degree mills who sell qualifications to clients who do not merit obtaining them. Out of all the qualifications assessed from 2009-2013, 28 percent where found not comparable with similar local qualifications in terms of curriculum content, rigor, duration of study and entry requirements. The lessons from the study include the need for higher education institutions to enrol students who meet nationally agreed entry requirements as well as introducing qualifying courses before admission of those who do not initially meet the required standards for entry. Quality assurance bodies and institutions of higher learning should continue to collaborate with similar bodies globally in order to share best practices on quality assurance issues and setting of minimum standards.
How to do a p-descent on an elliptic curve
In this paper, we describe an algorithm that reduces the computation of the (full) p-Selmer group of an elliptic curve E over a number field to standard number field computations such as determining the (p-torsion of) the S-class group and a basis of the S-units modulo pth powers for a suitable set S of primes. In particular, we give a result reducing this set S of 'bad primes' to a very small set, which in many cases only contains the primes above p. As of today, this provides a feasible algorithm for performing a full 3-descent on an elliptic curve over Q, but the range of our algorithm will certainly be enlarged by future improvements in computational algebraic number theory. When the Galois module structure of E[p] is favorable, simplifications are possible and p-descents for larger p are accessible even today. To demonstrate how the method works, several worked examples are included.