Canadian Graduates with South African Doctorates...

Greetings all,

A Canadian friend of mine is insterested in pursuing a South African doctorate, but would like to learn from other Canadians regarding the acceptability/legality/marketability of their degrees in Canada.

Any good folks out there interested to help out a compatriot of theirs?

Kenneth

 

Yikes! That's just got to be a reallyreally small demographic.

You might have more luck in contacting iaci-canada.com or maybe the unisa alumni association.

 

A friend of mine is teaching as an adjunct with a M.Sc from the University of Pretoria in Canada. She has no issues with the acceptability of her degree.

A doctorate from South Africa can be good for adjunct or community college gigs. I would think it might be a hard sell for saturated fields where there are plenty of candidates with degrees from prestigious Canadian schools like Sciences, Computing, Education, etc but it might have a good chance for fields with relative low competition such Accounting.

 

UNISA is part of the Association of Commonwealth Universities and should have no issue with acceptability/legality in Canada at all. Obtaining tenure within a university in Canada is more dependent on field of study and publications in quality journals than when the degree was obtained; unless the school is a for-profit American online school (then you're SOL).

 

Thanks

Thanks for those who responded.

I think I agree, since this has been my own experience. I am wondering though about other SA universities, not only Unisa, regarding their acceptability in Canada.

I hope we can hear some anecdotal information in this regard.

Kenneth

 

With the seemingly endless layoffs and Bell and Nortel, I can believe that the competition in the "digital arts" must be severe for community college jobs. But I have a Chartered Accountant friend who tells me that there many unemployed/under-employed accountant in Toronto. I would imagine that community college accounting positions must be competitive also.

Were you expressing your opinion or do you have a job forecast or community college forecast that you rely on??

Best wishes----Jim

 

Is the acceptability the same for Aussie Doctorates in Canada? I would assume so based on the string so far.

 

For me the Aussie doctorate has worked to land adjunct positions at the University level and community college. I get doctorate level paid at the community college where I work so it has been recognized there for pay purposes.

As for full time tenure track positions, I have applied to few places and the feedback has been that too many applicants were interested and that the committee looked for candidates with stronger research background. I have seen resumes of few fresh PhDs and many have 20 to 30 publications in prestigious journals so it is hard to compete with that.

Last year I applied to McGill University for an assistant professor, the University sent me a letter mentioning that the competition for this position was fierce and they had to go with the best candidate, I later checked and the University hired an MIT PhD graduate with a strong research background. It is hard to believe that a person with an MIT degree would go for a position that hardly pays 70K but it seems to be the case.

In few words, the Aussie doctorate would technically make you qualified for tenure tracks but there are only few positions available so unless you have a strong research background you would be considered for them.

An alternative could be to pursue a Post Doc position to build your resume. However, these positions pay around 30-40K and there is no guarantee that you will get something after this.

I think I will settle for my community college job and adjunct gigs for now, the pay for an assistant professor is not much different from the one from a community college in Canada but the competition seems to be just too much for me to handle.

 

In the Toronto area, community colleges are starting to ask for PhDs for full time instructor positions. Go to websites for schools like George Brown, Sheridan or Humber, all of them ask for a PhD for full time positions.

I have seen few stats from government agencies and it seems that there is a shortage of community college professor in technical fields including accounting. The forecast that I read also stated that these new positions are non permanent and mainly part time.

I teach IT and it is almost impossible to get teaching positions in this area nowadays, I was lucky to get the ones that I have in 2000 and for this reason I decided to do my doctorate DL as I had the feeling that the market was going to collapse and after would be stuck with a PhD a no job.

At some point, I was interested in a Post Doc position in Computer Security that paid 35K in Ottawa, I did not apply but got a letter from the school stating that they got 50 applications for the job. A job that requires a PhD and only pays 35K and is on a contract basis.

The moral of the story is to stay away from any IT related doctorate for now. There are enough PhDs in line to feed the market for good 10 years so I wouldn't risk it in this area.

 

It would be prudent to point out that the institutions that you names are not technically community colleges anymore, are "polytechnics" and members of Polytechnics Canada. They all offer some four-year applied degrees and are probably required to have faculty at at least the masters-degree level.

Salaries for professors at Ontario colleges have a maximum step salary of about $96,500 and it will probably approach $100,000 by the end of the year since the union contract is up at the end of August. It is my personal opinion that being a professor at a college in Ontario is much better than a university and in some cases, pays much better. Also, if research is not your thing, Ontario colleges are fantastic places to work for tenured professors.

 

Any doctorate from an English-speaking country is just fine in Canada. It's all about publications and research agenda.

 

I totally agree with you. A full time tenure track gig at McGill or University of Ottawa pays about 65K, if you have previous teaching experience and a PhD you are looking at a 70 to 80K at an Ontario College with a PhD. You don't need to publish and you get tenure by virtue of seniority only.

 

It must be the love of research, eh?

Again, for clarification to non-Canadians, "tenure" in the Ontario college system is obtained after the completion of a probationary period of usually 24 months. Assuming that all teaching evaluations are positive, full-time "tenured" status is given and the professor joins the faculty union. Also, there are no "ranks" in the college system in Ontario, all full-time tenured faculty are "professors" (there is no assistant, associate, full, etc...).

 

From what I understand CEGEPs (for those unfamiliar with the Quebec education system a CEGEP is essentially the step for Quebec students between high school and university, it's a French acronym which loosely translated is College of General and Professional Education) pay a PhD around $70,000 for a full time teaching load for the Fall and Winter semesters. No research, no obligation to teach summer classes. Sounds pretty decent to me, but I have never heard that it's easy to get hired.

 

Indeed, not easy at all. However, more and more PhD graduates are working at CEGEPs as full time tenure track positions at Universities are even harder to get. Many assistant professor gigs in fields like Arts and Education at Universities start at 50K so the 70K is indeed attractive.

If teaching is your ultimate goal, you might want to take a look at secondary or elementary school teaching. In Ontario, people with Master's degrees are making 80K that is sometimes higher than people with PhDs teaching at the University level.

 

In terms of getting hired, the same holds true for Ontario colleges. It is a very difficult process to get hired. Many postings go internally to part-time professors. The panel interviews focus more on teaching skills and a teaching demonstration is required.

 

Thanks to all...

However, I guess, there aren't many Canadian graduates of South African Universities here.

But, thanks for the ideas.

Although the direction the thread morphed into is an interesting one, that is, the possibility of teaching positions at community colleges or polytechnics in Canada.

Any US citizens teaching in Canadian institutions, using their South African credentials?

KKA

 

our little neighbor to the north

Surely this is not correct. English-speaking countries include: India and the Philippines, where at some institutions, degrees are almost bought and sold, and west African countries like Liberia where degree are bought and sold.

 

Can you name a few of those universities in India and the Philippines ?