The iconic Ivory Tower atop the Main building at Makerere University. The building houses the office of the University Vice Chancellor and is the administrative headquarter of the University.

Over the weekend, President Yoweri Museveni officially opened the yearlong celebrations to mark 90 years of Makerere University. 
Opened on August 4th 1922, Makerere has over the years grown as a premier tertiary institution on the continent though stumbling through Uganda’s years of social, political and economic decline and rebounding when the country stabilized.
Today, as the University marks 90 years, some look nostalgically to its past to analyse the challenges it is facing today yet quite a substantial see many bright years ahead for the institution once called the Harvard of Africa.
Speaking on Saturday President Museveni emphasised that Makerere must now move towards more science and technological innovations not only for its own survival but if it is going to continue playing a key role in the world of academics.
Events for the 90 years of Makerere started on Thursday with an invitational lecture on “The role of the academia in building a sustainable private sector: A case study of Dr Martin Aliker.” Mr William Kalema delivered the lecture to a capacity audience in the University Main Hall.
Walking the journey of Makerere from 1922, he reminisced its humble beginnings from a name many of the recent graduates and current students may have never known once identified the institution whose academic reputation they proudly wear “Nyangi Eradde.”
The institution began as, Makerere College School- a technical school to train artisans such as carpenters, brick layers but not plumbers or engineers because by 1922, Uganda neither had running water or electricity. He told how “elegantly dressed students wore shorts, pattice on their legs but bare foot.”
Grander ambition:
It soon became clear that after ten years of schooling and then end up as an artisan was not satisfactory, so Makerere became academic. “All qualifications in Education, Agriculture, and Veterinary and Human medicine were diplomas. The holders of these qualifications went out to be assistants to the colonial masters who had degrees from their various universities in their country,” said Mr Kalema.
It was until 1947 that the Carr-Saunders Commission recommended that Makerere becomes a university offering degrees of the University of London. By mid-1930’s, the institution had already started admitting students from Kenya, Tanganyika (Now Tanzania) and Zanzibar.
Unlike today, when the average age of students attending universities is 20, the average age at the time was thirty. The students were those who had left their own homes and families and they were not only mature but also serious about their studies.
At the time, the equivalent of A-Level was done at Makerere for two years on top of the twelve years in school. The year 1949, this was when the institution decided that students in second year will finish with Diplomas and those that had joined the university in the same year would start on a degree course.
The first recipients of a Bachelor’s degrees spent five years at the institution. However, this was changed years later when the duration was reduced to three years after a few selected schools started offering A-level studies.
At the time of the start of the degree courses, the student population stood just under 500-housed under Sseppuuya, Bamugye, Nsubuga and Sejongo Halls all in the southern part of the campus. The dominant schools that sent students to the university were in Uganda- Nyapea, St. Peters Tororo, Jinja College Mwiri, Namilyago Boys School, Kisubi, Old Kampala, Kings College Buddo, Nyakasura School and St Leo’s Kyegobe.
Two schools from Kenya, Alliance High School and Mangu Boys School sent student to the best university in the region while; Zanzibar Secondary School, Tabora boys contributed students from Tanzania.
Today, the situation has changed with at least 20,000 schools from within the country and those from all over the continent and the world able to send students to Makerere.