Taking the Bull by the Horns: A Mauritian Qualitative Study of the Doctoral Training in French Studies

Abstract

Extant literature reveals that reports of the experiences of humanities doctoral students are relatively rare. In view of examining whether there is a need to review the traditional French studies doctoral training into the New-route PhD to reboot and reinvigorate the field, an inventory of how doctorates were and are still trained was conducted in 2019. An informal interview with five PhD holders, who have completed their PhD in the same field at different universities in France and Mauritius, was done. Two main themes were manually coded during data collection: research community, and doctoral training and career guidance. Despite major amendments over the centuries, the doctoral training for candidates enrolled in this PhD in both France and Mauritius still lags behind and is often accused of being completely irrelevant in solving social issues. In this empirical study, the focus group has enabled us to investigate the support doctoral students have received in order to make learning leaps and develop research and technical skills which can benefit them in or outside academia. Despite the resilience of all respondents to complete their PhD (French studies), it seems that some changes are needed in the field. The role of the university and Education 4.0 is not to simply produce and disseminate knowledge but must also prepare the student to face the labour market and to enable the doctoral candidate achieve what is called “doctorateness”, participate in (inter)-national research community and use advanced technology such as programming languages/artificial intelligence/metaverse/virtual reality among others.