Higher Education and the Knowledge Society Agenda in Uganda

This chapter examines the role of the higher education sector in the knowledge society agenda in Uganda. National policy documents on research, development, and innovation mandate higher education institutions to produce knowledge and human resource and foster innovation for the economy to rise to the development trends of the knowledge age. However, there are two dilemmas to this effect; the first is that national expectations coexist with the reality that Ugandan universities lack academic staff and major teaching and research infrastructure. The second is that the policy rhetoric at the national level demonstrates little commitment at the implementation level; hence, there is a big gap between policy and practice at the institutional level. Thus, an overview of the higher education sector in terms of origins, structure, and contemporary trends has shown that expectations for the sector are growing and evolving, depicting an academic community under pressure to deliver with the bare minimum. Uganda’s higher education sector therefore appears tasked beyond its capacity to guide socio-economic transformation.