Explore publications.

Black postgraduate (PG) students in South African universities and universities of technology experience significant supervisory conflicts, including contradictory guidance, neglect, and favoritism, which delay graduation and intensify inequities rooted in post-apartheid higher education (HE) dynamics. Prevailing research overlooks these students’ lived experiences, creating a gap in understanding systemic barriers to equitable supervision. This qualitative study employed narrative inquiry with six purposively sampled black PG students (four females, two males) from PhD, MTech, and MSc programs across South African universities. Semi-structured interviews explored supervisory conflicts, institutional responses, and academic impacts. Thematic analysis framework, yielding six themes validated through member checking. Key findings revealed conflicting supervisory directions causing years-long stagnation; prolonged neglect and feedback delays demotivating students; irrelevant objectives imposed by additional supervisors leading to academic penalties; inexperienced supervisors contributing to dropouts; power imbalances and ethical breaches such as gift-giving favoring certain students; and inadequate institutional resolutions forcing adversarial advocacy. Supervisory conflicts undermine black students' progress and well-being, demanding decolonial reforms for inclusive practices. Recommendations include mandatory supervisory contracts, accreditation, ombud services, and bias training to enhance throughput and equity. Future research should pursue longitudinal, comparative designs and intervention trials.

The paper developed a multilevel model (MLM) of postgraduate (PG) supervision to improve the academic publication and PG completion rate. Crowdsourcing essentials were used in the development of the model. The crowds consisted of the MLM made of students from Honours to doctoral levels. Teamwork was also implored, where the teams were level mates and supervisory teams. The simplest form of the model has the potential to generate over 65 academic manuscripts for journals. Monitoring of the supervision process can provide maximized completion of the PG research studies. Research capacity building would be effected for the doctoral and master’s students making them able to supervise and co-supervise from Honours to doctoral levels upon completion of their studies. The study condemned the use of a single supervisor for several doctoral students. It recommended the implementation of the model (the MLM PG Supervision Framework). It further recommended that doctoral students should be assigned co-supervisors, preferably varied for different students, to enable diversity in the supervision experience.