Origins and destinations known: learning from the tracer study of international African doctoral graduates

Abstract

South Africa’s universities host a large considerable number of international doctoral students, of whom international Africans make up close to 40% of the eventual PhD graduates. Immigration policy requires the graduates to return ‘home’ upon completion, raising the question - where do they go to? The conventional wisdom is these highly-skilled graduates will leave the continent for opportunities in the North. This lack of information presents a serious gap in evidence for policy making. With NRF support a tracer study of International African doctoral graduates of the five research universities was carried out over the period 2012- 2016. Performing the tracer study called for dealing with severe informational obstacles. The online survey achieved a 42% return rate and provides robust, and quite surprising insights.