It’s time to reduce the number of PhD students, or rethink how doctoral programs work

Gwilym Croucher, University of Melbourne

There are not enough academic jobs vacant in Australia each year to employ all our PhD graduates.

This imbalance risks training an increasing numbers of doctoral students on a promise that cannot be fulfilled: that is future academic employment.

4925267732_492be0075f_o-smaller

We need to accept a hard truth that Australia needs to rethink the design of the PhD and the expectations around it, or radically reduce intake to doctoral programs. Continue reading