Makerere University

Makerere University (/məˈkɛrəri/; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922, and the oldest currently active university in East Africa. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of nine colleges and one school, offering programmes for about 36,000 undergraduates and 4,000 postgraduates. These colleges include College of Natural Sciences (CONAS), College of Health Sciences (CHS), College of Engineering Art & Design (CEDAT), College of Agriculture and Environmental Studies (CAES), College Of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS), College of Humanities & Social Sciences (CHUSS), College of Computing and Information Sciences (COCIS), College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources & Bio-security (COVAB), College of Education and External Studies (CEES) and Makerere University Business School (MUBS). In addition, Makerere has another campus in Eastern Uganda Jinja City.

Makerere University is the alma mater of many post-independence African leaders, including Ugandan president Milton Obote and Tanzanian presidents Julius Nyerere and Benjamin Mkapa. The former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, and former Kenyan president the late Mwai Kibaki are also Makerere alumni.

In the years immediately after Uganda's independence, Makerere University was a focal point for the literary activity that was central to African nationalist culture. Many prominent writers, including Nuruddin Farah, Ali Mazrui, David Rubadiri, Okello Oculi, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, John Ruganda, Paul Theroux, Nobel Prize laureate V. S. Naipaul, and Peter Nazareth, were at Makerere University at one point in their writing and academic careers.

Because of student unrest and faculty disenchantment, the university was closed three times between 2006 and 2016. After the third closing, it was reopened in January 2017. The main administrative block was gutted by fire in September 2020 and reconstructed.

The trade school that became Makerere University began operating in 1921 with the first classes in carpentry, building construction and mechanics. In 1922, it was founded as the "Uganda Technical College" with additional courses in the arts, education, agriculture and medicine. That same year it was again renamed as Makerere College. In 1928, the vocational classes were separated from the college and renamed Kampala Technical School. In 1937 the college began offering post-secondary education certificate courses.

In 1943, the British Protectorate government proposed the university, which led to a controversial struggle. It was described as "a plot to steal African soil for European settlement," by the Bataka Party. In response to this campaign, there was rioting in the capital of Kampala.

In 1949, Makerere College was granted university status and its name became Makerere College, University of East Africa. In the same year, the Bataka Party had been banned by the British Protectorate government, because of acts of riot and arson committed after a Bataka protest gathering.

Makere University has been cited as playing a "crucial" role in the development of primatology, particularly field studies. Researchers such as Niels Bolwing, Alexander John Haddow, Vernon Reynolds, Alison Jolly, and Thelma Rowell studied and conducted research through the university. Makerere helped bridge medical tropical research on human diseases such as Yellow Fever to field studies.