The politicization of the PhD and the employability of doctoral graduates: An Australian case study in a global context

In this chapter, we reflect on current debates on the employability of doctoral graduates and related concerns about PhD graduates' work skills (or their lack) using recent Australia policy debates and developments (2008-2014) as a case study. The chapter proceeds in three sections. We begin with a global overview of the political attention being directed to the PhD and frame this politicization of the PhD as one consequence of the rise of knowledge economy discourses. We then survey the broad contours of the employment of PhD graduates debate and its contradictory elements, which simultaneously present cases for there being too many and too few PhDs. We argue that this is due to the operation of different frameworks for understanding the meaning, function and objectives of PhD education. The chapter then turns to Australia and a brief overview of the politicization of the Australian PhD under successive Federal governments since the 1990s. Political attention on the PhD has been intense in Australia since 2008, with the pursuit of an ambitious government-led research and innovation agenda with implications for the framing of the employability of PhD graduates and curriculum responses to address this issue. We conclude with some critical reflections on way this policy debate has been framed, highlighting some unexamined assumptions, and the failure to incorporate what is known about the diversity and prior work experience of the Australian PhD cohort