For complex, turbulent and rapidly changing developing nations, their histories, national cultures, physical resources and demographies create the landscapes in which innovation must flourish.
In successful emerging economies — that is those that generate high growth rates (6% to 12% for a sustainable period) — the quality of their national postgraduate education system has played a key role.
Their universities, and in particular the original research at masters and doctoral levels, have spurred innovation and development. University research focusing on very specific and practical problems is common in Israel, China, India and Singapore.
And, despite their different histories, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile and South Africa all show how postgraduate education affects economic performance and overall prosperity.
All these countries have set up their postgraduate systems to grapple intensely and practically with developmental issues.
Israel, a small economy, now has the world’s second Silicon Valley. It achieved this by enabling high-quality, businesslinked but academically independent institutions to develop the necessary ICT strategies and capacities.
Similarly, Singapore has built excellent business, medical and engineering schools that turned it from a centre of shipping and oil refining to a hub for financial services, education and, more recently, entertainment, such as the Formula 1 Grand Prix.
South Africa has a long history of postgraduate education, but much of it has historically served one community. The system has also been a Western-oriented, often photocopied version of British or American institutions.
The next 20 years or so will be critically important for South Africa as it struggles to ratchet up its growth rate. In my view there is no doubt that high growth rates are the only basis on which to stabilise our country and to ensure that the inequalities of the past become merely memories rather than the foundations of our future politics.
Postgraduate education, particularly in engineering, science and other professional disciplines, needs to be a national priority and focus, so the recent additional support from the government in these fields at a school level is to be strongly welcomed.
But South Africa’s doctoral programmes are critically behind their international peer groups and there is very little support for the necessarily lengthy investment in time and resources.
Attracting outstanding graduates to do postgraduate research while ensuring enough investment through scholarships and other support programmes is central.
It is no coincidence that Sasol and Eskom employ the largest numbers of PhDs of any institution in the country.
Postgraduate education in South Africa must be a magnet for graduate students from the rest of Africa. It is clearly in South Africa’s self interest to ensure that its graduate schools are able to attract and conduct research with leading scholars from the whole continent.
It is such thinking that has fed into our newly established doctoral programme aimed at ensuring academic research of value to the business community, the economy and their development.
Professor Nick Binedell is the director of the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), which launched a full-time MBA for entrepreneurs last year. This aims to support those who have already established a successful corporate and managerial career but who would like to follow an entrepreneurial path and pursue their dream of establishing their own business