Beyond deficit narratives: Supervisory gaps, resilience, and institutional learning in Ghanaian higher education

Postgraduate supervision is central to research quality, doctoral completion, and academic socialisation, yet supervision practices remain uneven in many resource-constrained higher education systems. This study explores how supervision gaps are perceived, attributed, and navigated by postgraduate students and supervisors in Ghanaian public universities. Drawing on organisational theory, role theory, and social exchange theory, the study adopts an interpretive phenomenological design and analyses semi-structured interviews with 34 participants across eight public universities. Findings reveal that supervision gaps are structurally produced through weak quality assurance mechanisms, role ambiguity, hierarchical academic cultures, misaligned incentive systems, and regulatory constraints. Rather than passive recipients of these conditions, students and supervisors actively deploy adaptive and resilience-based strategies, including peer support networks, self-directed learning, digital communication, and informal flexibility in supervision arrangements. While these strategies sustain progress, they also expose risks related to quality assurance, equity, and emotional labour. The study makes a novel contribution by reconceptualising coping and resilience not merely as individual survival mechanisms but as contextually grounded practices with potential to inform sustainable supervisory reform. It argues for culturally responsive, process-oriented supervision models that formalise effective adaptive practices while reducing over-reliance on individual resilience as a substitute for institutional support.