The shadow curriculum in higher education: exploitation and gender bias in African graduate supervision - a narrative review

The supervision of graduate students is vital in shaping their academic and professional development paths. However, in many African universities, informal and unregulated practices- collectively referred to as the shadow curriculum - govern supervision through undocumented educational practices that operate parallel to formal systems. This paper aims to explore how the shadow curriculum perpetuates gender bias, exploitation, and unequal power dynamics in postgraduate supervision across selected higher education contexts in Africa, as well as ethically and culturally responsive supervision and mentorship practices. This paper adopts a narrative review and interpretive synthesis approach, examining literature published between 1990 and 2024 to capture evolving supervision practices and related gender dynamics. The findings indicate that weak regulations and patriarchal structures enable supervisors to exploit students through unpaid labor, limited academic independence, and the appropriation of research ideas, with female students particularly affected. Female students also face additional barriers, including discrimination, exclusion, and harassment. There are, therefore, opportunities to engage more effectively with accountability frameworks and gender-responsive supervision models based on equity, transparency, and academic autonomy. The review indicates that these approaches may support fairness in postgraduate education, strengthen research capacity, and promote sustainable development within higher education contexts represented in this review.