MUST at 30! A Journey of Success Started With Only 5 Lecturers, 4 of Whom Were Cuban

BY BERNARD MUBIRU

Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) is the 2nd best University in Uganda and one of the public universities the country has. On Monday 28th October, 2019, the nation marked 30 years of MUST. Today, we bring the journey this great institution has passed through.

MUST was established on 28th October 1989 by a Statute of the National Resistance Council, as the second public university in Uganda, after Makerere University. It was established in the premises of the former Nursing & Midwifery School.

It started with only one faculty which was that of Medicine offering the degree of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) with 43 students and 5 members of staff, four of whom were from the Republic of Cuba.

Among these students 37 were males and 5 were females who shared 37 and 12 rooms of residence respectively. In 1992, The University was gifted with a bus from the Ministry of Education, surprisingly this bus is still working up to now and it was nicknamed MENOPAUSE.
In October 1995, the Faculty of Science was established with 32 government sponsored students to pursue Bachelor of Science in Education.

In 1998, the president commissioned a university library and a modern Lecture theatre (PLT)
Over the years, other faculties have been established and these include Interdisciplinary Studies, Computing and Informatics, Applied Science and Technology, and lastly faculty of Business and Management Sciences.

Presently the number of students is over 4000 and a huge section of alumni across Uganda and the neighbouring countries. MUST has had two vice chancellors since inception and these are Prof Fredrick Kayanja who served from 1989 up to 2014 and the current one is Prof Celestino Obua.

Over the weekend on 26th, MUST held their 26th graduation ceremony with over 1000 students graduating in a ceremony that was held from their Kihumuro Campus along the Mbarara – Bushenyi highway.