The hidden curriculum of faculty promotion in Africa’s Flagship University

The academic promotion system in universities in different parts of the world is a terrain fraught with institutional policy, power politics, and individual sensemaking. In the paper, we draw on cognitive-interpretive facets of faculty members lived experiences and interpretations of the promotion process at Makerere University, Uganda’s premier university. Taking cues from the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and Social Practice Theory, the qualitative inquiry examined the 33 faculty members’ perceptions about the promotion policies as enacted in and around the promotion practices in their daily work in different disciplines. These interpretations in turn accumulate to a hermeneutic spiral of reciprocal causation. The study therefore contributes to sustainability conversations, by underscoring the importance of a balanced system of evaluation that ensures credibility of the institution, positively affect the faculty members’ wellbeing and overall institutional sustainability, especially in the context of global south, among others. The study contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically, SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).