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Issues related to attrition and completion time of graduate studies are certainly an internationally challenging and important area of higher education literature. In this paper, completion time dynamics of doctoral studies at Makerere University were investigated based on data extracted for all 295 candidates in the commencement cohorts from 2000 to 2005. The total elapsed time, from first enrollment to submission of a final copy of a thesis, was adopted as a measure of completion time and event history (survival) analysis methodology was applied. Results reveal a median completion time of 5.0 years. Following a Cox model, in a range of candidate, candidature, discipline and institutional variables, the rate of completion was higher for candidates at younger ages during commencement, international students, those registered in science-related disciplines, and those in commencement cohorts from 2000 to 2002. The model correctly identified the order of completion times by about 72% of the time.

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Objective: Since the 1990s studies on how stakeholders in higher education perceive quality have burgeoned. Nevertheless, the majority of studies on perception of quality in higher education focus on students and employers. The few studies on academics’ perceptions of quality in higher education treat academics as a homogeneous group and, therefore, do not point out cross-disciplinary perspectives in perceptions of quality. This article explores how academics across six disciplines perceive quality in higher education. Method: The article is anchored in the interpretivist paradigm. Data was collected from 14 purposely selected academics at Makerere University in Uganda and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The findings show that academics perceive quality in higher education as transformation, fitness for purpose, and exceptional. The findings further demonstrate that a stakeholder group or an individual stakeholder can subscribe to a notion of quality in higher education but voice divergent views on its variants. Similarly, the academic discipline, the perceived purpose of higher education, and the problems within a higher education system have an influence on stakeholders’ conception of quality in higher education. Conclusions: From the findings it can be inferred that quality in higher education defies a single definition and that stakeholders’ perceptions of quality do not take place in a vacuum. Implication for Theory and/or Practice: The multidimensional nature of quality and the contestations around it necessitate a multidimensional approach to assuring and assessing it.

Although student persistence in graduate programs is widely regarded as an important topic in the literature of higher education, many such works focus on the completion of studies. This paper examines the dynamics of attrition resulting in either delayed or non-completion of doctoral studies. Administrative data of 294 Ph.D. students at Makerere University in the 2000 to 2005 enrollment cohorts were analyzed. The total elapsed time from first enrollment to submission of a final dissertation or thesis copy was taken as a measure of completion time. A multinomial logistic was applied for assessing the likelihood of completion and extended candidature, rather than withdrawal, five years after initial enrollment in doctoral studies. In the results, the estimates rates of extended candidature (48.6%) and withdrawal (36.4%) indicate a low timely completion rate of doctoral students at Makerere. The observed associations, modeled by a range of candidate, candidature, and institutional variables, including discipline area, suggest the need for establishing measures to promote progress in doctoral studies at early stages of commencement as well as throughout the course of candidature.