University of Nairobi

The University of Nairobi (UoN), based in Kenya’s capital, is the oldest and largest university in the country.

It was first founded as the Royal Technical College in 1956 and, after a number of transformations and name changes, in 1970 it became known as the university it is today.

For many years UoN was the only higher education institution in Kenya, where its main focus was to meet the training needs of Nairobi’s workforce. Later, it grew and developed specialist programmes in sciences, applied sciences, social sciences, technology, humanities and the arts.

More recently, as the country’s education system has opened up, the university has diversified and now offers almost 900 degree programmes to more than 80,000 students. Its academic staff number around 2,000, with a further 5,500 staff employed in technical and administrative positions.

The university comprises six colleges in all, located throughout the city across seven separate campuses. They are the Colleges of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, Architecture and Engineering, Biological and Physical Sciences, Education and External Studies, Health Sciences, and Humanities and Social Sciences.

UoN has an alumni network of 184,000 with politicians, cabinet ministers and heads of state among them.

The university claims strengths in the areas of teaching, research, development, consultancy and professional excellence. It has also produced more trained graduates in human resources than any other higher education institution in the country.

Nairobi itself is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city located 480 kilometres west of the Indian Ocean. It is Kenya’s commercial, administrative and cultural centre and lays claim to having the world’s only game reserve located in a major city (Nairobi National Park).