“Intellectual death is endemic in areas where people are unprepared to obtain new information for development. Learning is a way of staying alive,” says Israelmore Ayivor in Shaping the Dream.

The education sector of Uganda may, like the health and agriculture sector, be experiencing financial starvation in this 21st century as the security sector and State House are allocated humongous funds in and outside the national budget (in the form of supplementary budgets) by the Parliament of Uganda.

However, it has experienced reorientation of university (higher) education towards academicism and scholasticism at the expense of intellectualism, just as was the case during the Great Industrial Revolution in Europe when intellectuals, like philosophers, were an endangered species.

To this end Uganda is experiencing ‘massification of higher education, academics boom and intellectual death’ in keeping with the universal belief that knowledge is the only raw material on which our future earning capacity and prosperity can be based. Massification of education, academics boom and intellectual death reflect intellectual decay and collapse summarised as “the death of the intellectual” (Krook, 2014). These phenomena, however, are worldwide occurrence and are compounded by internet boom, the digital skills boom (VMWARE, 2022) and artificial intelligence boom (e.g. Miller, 2023). Ross (2023), using the Australian higher education boom, records that academics are the real victims of 21st century higher education boom involving massification, academics boom and intellectual death.

Definitions

The term ‘massification of higher education’, also referred to as higher education boom (e.g. Dinçer and Kolluoğlu, 2024) refers to the widespread expansion of access to education at both basic and tertiary levels, driven by global initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals. It involves increasing enrolment rates and the emergence of different types of educational institutions, leading to challenges such as managerialism and differentiation. It may be seen as higher education that is available to everyone resulting in overwhelming numbers of students entering universities; a proliferation of higher education institutions to cater for these numbers of students.

The term ‘academics boom’ is used to refer to several related concepts, including a period of rapid growth and increased interest in academic pursuits, particularly within higher education and research. It can also describe a surge in the demand for educational resources such as publications (some fake) and libraries, or a general increase in academic performance and achievement, including a boom in PhDs, increasingly fake and useless to society with many holders unable to think and reason critically, write critically, offer alternative critical analyses or engage in critical discourses.

The term intellectual death signifies a cessation of critical thinking, resulting in mental stagnation that hinders spiritual and personal growth, ultimately blocking the path to genuine enlightenment and fulfillment. Intellectual death in Uganda’s history signifies a state of mental stagnation that hinders spiritual and personal development. It involves a lack of critical thinking, which thwarts genuine enlightenment and spiritual growth. This concept emphasises the dangers of losing the ability to engage thoughtfully, ultimately leading to a cessation of personal evolution, wisdom, understanding and insights.

Recognising and overcoming intellectual death is crucial for fostering ongoing spiritual and personal enlightenment. It should, however, be emphasised that intellectual death is not death of the brain (Wijdicks, 2007). Intellectuals articulate and clarify issues for society. However, as time goes on the world is experiencing a critical shortage of intellectuals. Hence the term intellectual death. Wisdom Library (2024 has discussed the significance and symbolism of intellectual death.

Massification of higher education

Massification of higher education is a global phenomenon. In East Africa, there has been massive massification of higher education, with the countries experiencing establishing of many universities accompanied by supersonic rise in numbers of students and meteoric decline in the quality of graduates and even academic staff. Many staff are unable to generate new knowledge and tend to recycle knowledge generated by knowledge workers of earlier decades, which they pass on to their students uncritically.

Globally, it is in China where the greatest massification of education has taken place. A record-breaking eight million students graduated from Chinese universities in 2017. This figure was nearly ten times higher than it was in 1997 and was more than double the number of students who graduated that year in the US. Two decades earlier, higher education in China was a rare privilege enjoyed by a small, urban elite. But everything changed in 1999, when the government launched a programme to massively expand university attendance. In that year alone university admissions increased by nearly 50 per cent and this average annual growth rate persisted for the next 15 years, creating the largest influx of university-educated workers into the labour market in history (Stapleton, 2017).

The government’s “Made in China 2025” strategy to become a global high-tech leader in industries such as advanced IT and robotics created plenty of opportunities for graduates in these fields. (Stapleton, 2017). Despite the rapid increase in the number of university graduates, Chinese companies still complained of not being able to find the high-skilled graduates they needed. The main deficit was in the so-called “soft skills” such as strong communication, analytical and managerial skills. According to research by McKinsey, there was a short supply of graduates with these assets. It is still a problem for China today.

Massification of higher education in Uganda

Like in Turkey (Dinçer and Kolluoğlu, 2024) over the past two decades, the higher education system in Uganda has undergone a massive and unprecedented transformation. Enrolment rates increased several-fold, driven by the government’s policy of liberalisation and or privatisation if education. Nine state universities have been established on top of the ancient Makerere University. Privatisation of higher education, leading to the establishment of well over 50 private universities, many operating without being chartered

In 2017/2018, Uganda’s universities had a student population of 183,084. This number represents an 11.4 per cent increase from 162,299 in the previous year. Private universities held the majority of students (108,096, or 59 per cent), while public universities had 74,988 (41 per cent).

There are currently, 32 universities in Uganda all accounting for a student population of about 110,000, turning out over 30,000 graduates annually. Makerere University alone accounts for over 30 per cent of this total. However, many problems remain unsolved. However, higher education in Uganda is clogged by many shortcomings that must be addressed to ensure that massification of education does not erode quality anymore than it has so far done. The list below was generated by Ms Bongyereire in a dialogue on higher education in Uganda.

• Many Ugandans believe the State House scholarship scheme that benefits Bahima and Tutsi in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC was started to neutralise big headed educated people of Bushenyi
• University education has become very dilute. You find a university paying 200,000 Uganda shillings to part-time lecturers per month. And such a university easily obtains a charter because of political connections
• Prof Opuda is said to have lost his job as the Executive Director of the National Council for Higher Education because he pointed out malpractices that occurred Busoga University and closed the University, which didn’t go well with some big politicians in Busoga
• In Kisoro, Cavendish and Busoga University study centers are said to have primary school teachers as part-time lecturers
• In Uganda, despite creating more public universities and private universities the intake remains low It’s like these universities share what Makerere University alone would admit
• Despite having 10 public universities (Busoga University may become the 11th this academic year) many students with 15-17 points in sciences remain languishing and can only be absorbed on private sponsorship
• Programmes like Students’ Loan Scheme are marred by corruption and nepotism.
• This year academic year 2025/26, only two students were sent to Busitema University to study Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery on national merit
• The Soroti University national admission was only one page, 56 students
• I’m reliably informed Kabale University was given 6 students for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery on national merit
• You find many students who scored 18, 19 points in arts combinations do not appear on admission lists anywhere
• It is rumoured that some universities admit students with 0 in biology to study medicine!

High tech digital skills in higher education

It is no surprise that high tech digital skills are in high demand externally and internally. To keep up with the more-than-ever geographically distributed workforce, organisations are distributing workloads across multiple clouds. Meanwhile, the Internet of things means more people are connected on more devices with users looking to edge-fast services to meet their needs (CSR Wire, 2022). With that growth, higher learning institutions are seeing a parallel rise in demand for better, less resource-intensive ways to teach key digital skills (CSR Wire, 2022).

Coming of Artificial Intelligence Age

Miller (2023) noted that there was rapid rollout of new forms of artificial intelligence, which has led to widespread adoption, but also ignited a lot of questions. She wondered whether this a benefit or a cause for concern. Many people fear AI is taking over our lives (e.g., Valerio Mezzanotti, 2016). However, Miller (2023) assures all that AI will not replace you but the person using AI will.

Many institutions, including universities, now focus their research on artificial intelligence and look at it from various angles. In addition, degree programmes in which artificial intelligence and machine learning are the focus are already in place (Miller, 2024). However, many universities in Africa in general and Uganda in particular lag behind (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2025).

Academic boom and bust

Many universities have experienced what is called: academic boom and bust”. An “academic boom and bust” refers to a period of significant growth in a particular academic field, followed by a decline in that field. Gorelick, (1983) introduced “Boom and Bust” idea in higher education. This cycle can involve changes in research funding, hiring patterns and even institutional prioritisation. It’s a common occurrence across various academic disciplines and can be influenced by factors like technological advancements, societal shifts, and economic conditions.

In Uganda, political interference in the academic environment whereby the president has raised the value of natural science over and above the humanities and social science by paying science knowledge workers and science professionals much higher, thereby creating the impression that the humanities and social science professionals are inferior. Most boom and bust cycles in Uganda’s higher education cannot be extricated from political influences.

Intellectual death in Uganda

Unlike in the early 1960s, 1970s and 1990s when there was vibrancy in academic and public intellectualism at Makerere University, the University of Dar-es-Salaam and Makerere University involving many heavyweights in academic and public intellectualism whose minds both clashed and met, today both the academic and public spaces in Uganda are devoid of such vibrancy. In the universities, their environments are now dominated by academicism and scholasticism. Academic intellectualism is dead. Outside the universities public intellectualism is also dead and the public space is now dominated by politics and militarism subserved by defective executive, legislative and judicial processes dominated by presidentialism.

In both the academic and public spaces, the conspiracy of silence in favour of politics and militarism ha been mushrooming supersonically over the last three decades. Fake academic intellectuals and public intellectuals with their roots in the status quo now occupy academic and public spaces. Liberating intellectualism has disappeared. This phenomenon seems to be worldwide. 

Joseph Krook (2014) has talked of the death of the intellectual. Jacoby Russel (2000) and Jacoby Russell (2015) has written about the last intellectual and the latest intellectual respectively.  Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2025) has linked intellectual death to the threats of genocide, ecocide and ethnocide. 

In two sentence, Uganda’s higher education is threatened by massification, academics boom, academic boom and bust and intellectual death. Increasingly and simultaneously, Uganda is losing in terms of critical thinking, critical reasoning and alternative critical analyses, while political and military solutions are gaining in stature in every sphere of human life and human endeavour.

For God and my country

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for – Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA).For God and my country.

Further reading

Amutuhaire, Tiberius (2022). Financing Higher Education: Who Pays, Who Benefits, and Who Should Pay for University Education in Uganda. East African Journal of Educational Studies, Vol 5 No 1 (2022): https://journals.eanso.org/index.php/eajes/article/view/625 Visited on 19 May 2025 at 14z:26 pm EAT.

Dinçer, E. M., & Kolluoğlu, B. (2024). Turkey’s higher education boom: the ‘one university in every city’ policy in small cities. Turkish Studies, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2024.2425314

Gorelick, S. (1983). Boom and Bust in Higher Education: Economic and Social Causes of the Current Crisis. Insurgent Sociologist, 11(4), 77-90. https://doi.org/10.1177/089692058301100408 (Original work published 1983), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089692058301100408 Visited on 20 May 2025 at 13:51 pm EAT.

Krook  Joshua (2014). The Death of the Intellectual. New Intrigue, August 16 2024 https://newintrigue.com/2014/08/16/the-death-of-the-intellectual/ Visited on 18 May 2025 at 10:05 am EAT.

Le Corre, Daisy (2025). Sports Administration: An Academic Boom in a Challenging Market.  AU University Affairs, March 25 2025. https://universityaffairs.ca/news/sports-administration-an-academic-boom-in-a-challenging-market/   Visited on 18 May 2025 at 11:26 am EAT.

Miller, Beth (2023). The artificial Intelligence Boom. WashU, 2023 Fall Issue, https://engineering.washu.edu/news/magazine/2023-fall/the-artificial-intelligence-boom.html Visited on 18 May 2025 at 12:03 pm EAT.

Noui, R. (2020), “Higher education between massification and quality”, Higher Education Evaluation and Development, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 93-103.  Emerald Publishing Limited https://doi.org/10.1108/HEED-04-2020-0008 https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/heed-04-2020-0008/full/html Visited on 19 May 2025 at 13:27 pm EAT.

Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2025). From Genocide to Ecocide to Ethnocide to Intellectual death. MUWADO, January 20 2025, https://muwado.com/uganda-from-genocide-to-ecocide-to-ethnocide-to-intellectual-death/?v=2a0617accf8b Visited on 29 May 2025 at 14:38 pm at 14:37 pm EAT.

Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2025). Welcome to Artificial Intelligence that’s Likely to Turn East Africa Universities into Knowledge Dinosaurs.  Tell Media, February 19 2025, https://tell.co.ke/welcome-to-artificial-intelligence-thats-likely-to-turn-east-african-universities-into-knowledge-dinosaurs/ Visited on 20 May 2025 at 13:14 pm EAT.

Ross John (2023). Academics the real victims” of 21st Century Australian Boom. The Times Higher Education, October 30 2023, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-real-victims-21st-century-australian-boom Visited on 18 May 2025 at 11:18 pm EAT.

Russell Jacoby (2000).  The Last Intellectuals: The American Culture in the Age of Academe. Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Last-Intellectuals-American-Culture-Academe/dp/0465036252 Visited on 9 January 2025 at 1057 am EAT.

Russell Jacoby (2015). The Latest Intellectuals. The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 29 2015. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-latest-intellectuals/ Visited on 19 January 2025 at 11:21 am EAT.

Stapleton, Katherine (2017). Inside the World’s largest Higher Education boom. The Conversation, April 10 2017, https://theconversation.com/inside-the-worlds-largest-higher-education-boom-74789 Visited on 18 May 2025 at 12:16 pm.

Teitelbaum, Michael S. (2014). Falling Behind? Boom, Bust and the Global Race for Scientific Talent. Princeton University Press. Published March 2014, https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691154664/falling-behind?srsltid=AfmBOoqi0aq0VTBLu7EF0qkQ6k9RJwyrHkGnSdPfYPUAlxGYvsdUGmI7 Visited on 20 May 2025 at 1:30 pm EAT.

Valerio Mezzanotti (2016).  Is Artificial Intelligence Taking over Our Lives?  The New York Times, September 25 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/05/is-artificial-intelligence-taking-over-our-lives Visited on 17 January 2025 at 16:18 pm EAT.

VMWARE (2022). Academic Cloud and the Digital Skills Boom. CSR Wire, 3 February 2022. https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/737916-academic-cloud-and-digital-skills-boom Visited on 18 May 2025 at 11:35 pm EAT.

Wijdicks, Eelco F. M. (2007). Intellectual death is not Brain Death. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Volume 176, Issue 6 https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/ajrccm.176.6.625a Visited on 18 May 2025 at 09:46 am EAT.

Wisdom Library (2024). Intellectual Death: Significance and Symbolism. Wisdom Library, 2 December 2024, https://www.wisdomlib.org/concept/intellectual-death Visited on 18 May 2025 at 09:258 am EAT.