Achievement of doctoral study: Tunisian PhD students' view

The decision to attend graduate school to get a PhD is an important one, and not one to be made lightly or without consideration. In Tunisia, typical doctoral programs take four to seven years to complete and in most science fields students then spend two to four years in postdoctoral training before beginning their professional career. Committing to a PhD means sacrifices as doctoral students are generally not well paid and doctoral training is a "job" that requires perseverance and very hard work. Survey on Tunisian doctoral education and career preparation is a national survey of doctoral students intended to provide a snapshot of their experiences and goals. About 200 students completed the 15- questions survey. These students were from 5 selected universities and represented Biomedicine and Health Sciences sectors. In this report, we have tried to explain the reasons making doctoral study as a real abnegation. Hence, there are three major causes (i) doctoral study may increase personal debt: relative to peers, it will forego many years of income (ii) limitation in the opportunity to get international research training courses that approve and finalise dissertations and (iii) Once they obtain their diploma it is too difficult for PhD graduates to get an appropriate work in universities, research or public health establishments. Nevertheless, doctoral work is still usually an exciting and positive experience.