Stadio adds new PhD programmes to 2021 offering

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Chief academic officer at Stadio, Dr Divya Singh, notes that a doctorate is the apex qualification for any profession. “We want the whole vertical spectrum for all our programmes. However, our approach will be to first bed down these two doctorates and make sure we have the quality and perfect processes in place before we start looking at expanding in the other disciplines,” she says.

Stadio has five faculties: education, law, arts and design, science and technology as well as commerce, administration and management. Singh says both doctorates fall under commerce, administration, and management.

Since 1997, the School of Management for Safety in Society, under the umbrella of its previous institutional title of Southern Business School, has run a Bachelors’ degree and Honours degree in police practice. The Masters programme was recently accredited.

“The offering is now complete with the introduction of the doctorate. The idea is that your police leadership should be equipped with both the discipline, skills knowledge and the underpinning academic bases,” Singh explains. Although the doctorate is a two-year programme, Stadio anticipates that students will complete it in three to four years given that they will be holding down full-time jobs while studying.”

Singh says Stadio has chosen to adopt a slightly different, more practical approach compared to the traditional theoretical approach that you would find when studying a PHD, for example. “Our thinking is to incorporate themed or focused research. So, instead of five people researching five different things, the five students would collectively grapple with a specific problem.

“For example, if you looking at policing in Khayelitsha, one would look at the issue of detection, one would look at community policing in the area, and another one would look at statistics and the economic impact.

“Once their research is complete, we will be able to pull together a complete, holistic report. The research will then be handed over to the police and can be used to advance policing in that particular space,” she says.

She points out that this approach will solve problems in a practical space, making a significant contribution to the working environment and this is the deciding factor likely to distinguish the Stadio offering from that of the public universities. The same approach will be adopted with the Doctorate in Management.

The institution offers hybrid learning - a combination of traditional classroom experiences, experiential learning objectives, and digital course delivery. The group commenced construction on its first multi-faculty campus, Stadio Centurion, in November 2019. The facility was intended to open in 2021 but management has elected to conserve cash until the full effects of Covid-19 are known. In line with this thinking, the facility construction and opening date has been pushed out to 2022.