Abstract

The National Development Plan 2030 (NDP 2030) outlines the following targets to be met by the South African higher education sector by 2030: Increase the percentage of academic staff in the higher education sector with a doctoral degree from the current share of 34% to more than 75%. And, produce more than 100 doctoral graduates per million of population per year by 2030.

Within the context of these targets, this Fact Sheet analyses the progress made towards the goal to increase the number of doctoral graduates in South Africa. It does so by answering the following research question: Are we producing enough doctoral graduates in South Africa?

The data presented in this Fact Sheet only represent public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) or public universities, and does not include data from private HEIs. The period under review in this Fact Sheet is 2012 to 2021.