Czech ministry plans tough changes to curb doctoral dropouts

The Czech Republic is planning a painful but welcomed shift from quantity to quality in doctoral education, as the government proposes changes to financing that many hope will fix abysmal dropout rates.

On average, only about 40 per cent of candidates pull through to defend their theses, a figure that can fall to as low as 20 per cent for some programmes.

A per-head funding model is widely blamed for lax admissions. “If the university recruited, say, 100 PhD students, it received 100 stipends,” Jaroslav Miller, the deputy minister tasked with reforming doctoral studies, told Times Higher Education. “Universities were not motivated to select the best and the most motivated applicants; they often accepted almost everybody.”

The government’s solution is to almost double the minimum monthly PhD stipend from 11,250 CZK (£385) to about 19,000 CZK and to hand universities a fixed budget to cover these, forcing them to get pickier about candidates.

Professor Miller, a former rector of Palacký University Olomouc, said the government expects both the number of doctoral students and the dropout rate to fall by about 35 per cent as a result, with reforms also imposing financial bonuses and penalties on universities based on their rates.

The changes leave a lot of the reshaping of doctoral education to institutions, such as written standards for supervisors. Vladimír Sedlařík, rector of Tomas Bata University in Zlín and vice-president of the Czech Rectors’ Conference, already has a plan to tighten admissions, only allowing funded supervisors to enrol students, whether that money comes from public performance-linked or local government pots, industry or projects.

“It will be a mixture of these sources,” he said, adding that departments would draw on different resources and so offer differing top-ups to the statutory minimum stipend.

Top-ups will attract a better calibre of student and make Czech universities more competitive in both the domestic master’s job market and against foreign doctoral programmes, according to Ladislav Krištoufek, vice-rector for research and a professor of economics at Charles University Prague, the oldest, largest and highest-ranked university in the country. He said stingy stipends and high living costs create a “deadly cocktail” for a city struggling to attract foreign doctoral students.

There is a consensus among both leadership and students that the volume model cannot roll on. Šárka Lojdová, president of the Czech Association of Doctoral Students, said bloated programmes limit contact time with supervisors, while Michal Farník, chairman of the Student Chamber of the Council of Universities, said the number of drifting students meant there was little concern about places being cut. “They are just going with the flow and after they exit master’s studies they are just continuing with PhDs,” he said.

Professor Sedlařík said EU regional development funding tied to the number of PhDs graduated had helped push up volumes in the past, but that departments would do well to wean themselves off a dependence on doctoral labour.

“It will be difficult, there will be tears, figuratively speaking of course, but it will hurt,” said Professor Krištoufek. Fewer, more committed students will ultimately be good for research quality, he said, while an end of doctoral students’ classroom obligations would do the same for teaching.

“I have quite high hopes, maybe too high, for this, but I really believe the reform itself will have huge consequences for the structure of the universities,” he said.

Some questions remain, such as whether the overall budget for doctoral stipends, which will be pegged at 1.2 times the minimum wage, will rise with inflation. If not, admissions could get very selective.

Professor Miller said the government expects to agree the reform in autumn, with parliamentary approval expected before Christmas, allowing the amendments to come into force at the start of 2024.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com