Who deserves the title ‘doctor’? A challenge to academic elitism

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OPINION

By Frank M Gashumba

At the recent wake of the late Prof. George Kanyeihamba, my friend Prof. Mondo Kagonyera criticised individuals who use the title “doctor” without having earned a traditional academic PhD, referring to honorary doctorates as unmerited shortcuts.

While I deeply respect Prof. Kagonyera’s academic accomplishments, I find his assertion both problematic and outdated. Is a title only valid if it comes from a lecture hall? Can true knowledge and impact only be measured in academic journals and thesis defences?

Honorary doctorates are not charity titles. They are society’s highest form of appreciation for those who have moved the needle of progress — not through essays, but through action, innovation, and leadership. This is not a modern invention. The tradition dates back to the 15th century, when Oxford University awarded its first honorary degree to Lionel Woodville — a full five centuries before academia became a gated community.

Today, prestigious institutions like Harvard, Cambridge and Yale continue the practice — honouring statesmen, tech pioneers, philanthropists and revolutionaries — not for what they wrote, but for what they changed.

The same universities that award academic doctorates are the same institutions that award honorary doctorates. Just like professors go to lecture rooms to teach, people with honorary doctorates are often invited to give public lectures to university students about real-life experiences, which give them practical knowledge in various fields.

More so, Kagonyera is aware that universities go through a rigorous process before approving anybody for an honorary doctorate. When Prof. Kagonyera was the vice-chancellor of Makerere University in 2010, Makerere awarded President Museveni an honorary doctorate. Is he saying what they did was bad?

Therefore, we should confront the uncomfortable truth: academia is not always synonymous with impact. We live in a country where professors proudly flaunt titles, yet teach outdated theories with zero practical relevance. How do we explain a professor of business who has never run a small shop? Or a PhD in information technology who can’t code a basic App?

Uganda imports toothpicks, matched boxes, shoe brushes, etc, while parading PhDs in industrial engineering. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs like Sudhir Ruparelia, Gordon Wavamunno and Umar Mandela, some of whom never set foot in a university lecture room, have run business empires for decades and employed thousands, paid billions in taxes and uplifted entire communities.

If academic doctors are architects of knowledge, these are its engineers — and they’ve been building, brick by brick. And then there’s President Museveni, a man who never attended a formal military academy, yet led a successful armed struggle, restructured an entire army and governed a country for over four decades. Whether one agrees with his politics or not, his achievements are feats of strategy and intellect that rival any doctoral thesis. Can we honestly say he hasn’t earned the right to recognition?

Today, universities are plagued by scandals: sexual harassment, corruption, endless strikes, lawsuits and political meddling. Some professors, who teach ethics by day, trade grades for favours by night. Others, who teach leadership and governance, can’t manage their own departments. Are these the custodians of honour? In that context, who really deserves to be called ‘doctor’?

Let us stop pretending that an honorary doctorate is a ‘lesser’ achievement. It is not a shortcut — it is a different path. It celebrates people whose textbooks are balance sheets, whose classrooms are factory floors, and whose theses are decades of leadership and innovation. They, too, have studied — only through life, not lectures. True education is not about how many books you’ve read; it is about how much you’ve changed the world. If a professor teaches for 30 years without solving a single societal problem, and an entrepreneur empowers thousands without a degree, who has educated the other?

If Uganda is to move forward, we must start valuing results over rituals, impact over ink and substance over status. Until our academic institutions begin solving real-world problems — creating jobs, boosting innovation, transforming society — then yes, those who hold honorary doctorates may, in fact, have earned the title ‘doctor’ in the most meaningful way possible.

The writer is founder of Sisimuka Uganda, vice-chairman PLU central region