Makerere University (; Mak also MUK) 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 Jinja City, Eastern Uganda.thumb|The Main Administration block for Makerere University, normally called the Main Building
thumb|Jubilee Monument
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 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 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.
Wildlife field studies
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.
Beginning on 1 August 2016, the non-teaching staff went on strike demanding back pay. The strike lasted three weeks and the government agreed to pay them by the end of October; however, the government failed to make the payment. This was but one more broken promise in a cycle of failed promises, strikes and more promises. allegedly following a probe by Uganda Parliament into financial mismanagement by university authorities.
100-year anniversary
thumb|Makerere University's first administrative building
In 2022, the university celebrated its centenary since its establishment as Makerere College in 1922. The institution was granted additional land for expansion into a university by Nsibirwa, a former prime minister of the Buganda Kingdom, in 1945. Despite facing numerous challenges in Uganda's political, social, and academic history, the institution has persevered for a century.
On October 7, 2022, a ceremony commemorating the centenary was held at Freedom Square, with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in attendance. A statue monument was unveiled at the entrance of the university's Freedom Square to mark this significant milestone in Uganda's educational sector.