Makerere University occupies a wooded hill about three kilometres northwest of central Kampala and is the oldest university in East Africa. The campus is open, free to walk into, and holds three things a visitor can actually use: the Main Building known as the Ivory Tower, the Makerere Art Gallery, and a couple of square kilometres of shaded ground in a city with almost no public parkland. The Kampala guide mentions it in a line; this page is the campus and what there is to do on it.
Things to Do on a Makerere University Campus Tour
Nobody runs an official visitor tour. What exists is an open campus that you walk, and a small number of places inside it that are worth walking to. Treat it as an hour or two on foot rather than a stop.
Go on a weekday in term time. Out of term the campus is a pleasant empty park with everything locked, which is the opposite of what makes it interesting.
The Ivory Tower on the Tour: the Fire, the Rebuild and the Museum
The Main Building went up in the late colonial period, its foundation cut by a visiting royal duke, and it became the picture of Makerere: a long symmetrical front with a clock tower over the middle. Generations of Ugandans call it the Ivory Tower, partly for the colour and partly with an edge.
It burned at night after an electrical fault, gutting the administration and a great deal of paper with it. The reconstruction kept the exterior and changed nearly everything behind it: concrete instead of the old timber floors, fire detection throughout, step free routes added, and the bell put back so that it chimes the hour again. A museum of the university’s own history was built into the basement.
The rebuild cost a great deal of public money and the figure was argued over in the Ugandan press at the time, which is worth knowing if the subject comes up with anyone who works there.
Makerere Art Gallery: the Best Reason to Make the Trip
The gallery sits within the campus, past the School of Law, recognisable from the sculptures standing on the grass outside it. It belongs to the university’s heritage conservation institute and it holds the collection built up from the earliest days of the art school, which makes it the one historic collection of modern Ugandan art anywhere.
The art school itself, the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, is the oldest in East Africa and the reason that collection exists. Exhibitions rotate between the permanent holdings and shows by students and working artists, and entry is usually free. Opening runs on weekdays through the working day with shorter hours on Saturday, and a Sunday visit needs arranging.
The art gallery guide covers where else Ugandan art is shown in Kampala, most of it in commercial spaces where Makerere’s graduates end up.
Walking the Campus: What a Self Guided Tour Takes In
The hill is big enough that you should decide a route rather than wander. From the main gate the road climbs to Freedom Square and the Main Building, which is the obvious anchor. The older residence halls sit off to the sides with their own gardens and their own fierce loyalties. Further out the campus becomes faculties, farms and staff housing.
Take water and a hat. There is shade under the trees and none at all on the open ground, and the climb from the lower gates is real. Students are used to visitors and will point you at things if you ask, which is quicker than a map.
What Makerere Is, and Who Came Through It
Makerere began as a small technical school on this hill, grew into a college attached to the University of London, and became an independent national university at independence. For a period it was the university for the whole of British East Africa, which is why its alumni list reads like a regional political directory.
Julius Nyerere studied here before leading Tanzania. So did a long line of Ugandan, Kenyan and Tanzanian politicians and civil servants. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was a student here, and the conference of African writers held on this campus in the early independence years is still argued about as the moment a continental literature named itself.
The institution then went through the same decades the country did: the Amin years, the collapse of funding, the brain drain, the long rebuilding, the periodic strikes and closures that still make the news. A Ugandan will tell you about all of that unprompted, with feeling, and it is a better campus tour than any plaque.
Gates, Security and Photography: Practical Rules for the Tour
Getting There and Pairing Makerere With Other Kampala Tours
Makerere hill is about three kilometres from the centre, off Bombo Road and Sir Apollo Kaggwa Road, ten to twenty minutes by taxi or a short boda boda ride. Several gates serve different sides of the hill, so name the gallery or the Main Building rather than just the university.
It sits on the northern side of the city, so it combines with the Baha’i temple at Kikaaya and the Uganda Museum rather than with the Mengo hills, which are on the opposite side of a congested centre. The city tours guide, the architecture tours guide and the botanical garden guide carry the operators running this side of Kampala.
Frequently Asked Questions About Visiting Makerere University
Can a visitor just walk onto the campus?
Yes. It is an open campus and people walk through it all day. There is no ticket, no visitor centre and no registration for someone on foot. Vehicles are checked at the gate.
Is the art gallery worth a special trip?
If you have any interest in African art, yes, and it is the single best thing on the hill. If you do not, come for the buildings and the trees instead and skip it without guilt.
Can I go inside the Ivory Tower?
The building is back in use as the university administration, so the public parts are the entrance areas and the basement museum rather than the offices. Ask at the desk rather than wandering upstairs.
How long should I allow?
An hour for the Main Building and Freedom Square. Two to three if you take the gallery properly and walk the older parts of the campus. A morning if you want to eat there and talk to anyone.
Is it safe?
Ordinarily yes, and it is calmer than the streets around it. The exception is a day with a student protest running, when police are on the campus and a visitor has no business being there. Ask your driver before going in.
Is Makerere really the oldest university in East Africa?
It is the oldest higher education institution in the region and became a university later than it became a college, so the precise claim depends on which date you count from. Nobody seriously disputes that it came first.
Uganda Safaris lists safaris sold by independent Ugandan operators. We take no booking, handle no payment and charge you nothing. No trip on this site is sold as a Makerere visit, and none needs to be, since you can walk in. If you want it built into a guided Kampala day, contact an operator through the enquiry route and ask for the northern hills rather than the standard Mengo circuit.