History of the University of Eldoret: A Brief Personal Perspective

Like all public universities in Kenya, the University of Eldoret has a long and eventful history. The University of Nairobi began its life as the Royal Technical College, opened by Late Princess Margaret (Queen Elizabeth’s Sister) in October 1956.

 Incidentally, the Princess visited our local Ndurio D.E.B. (District Education Board) School in the then Nandi Native Reserve, as part of her Mauritius-Dar es Salaam-Arusha-Mwanza-Kisumu-Nairobi trip and I had the privilege of watching her from close quarters on the back of my grandmother (RIP) as a three-year-old!

Kenyatta University was a British Military Base (Templar Barracks) from 1955 to 1965 and so forth. I arrived at the then Moi Teachers College in July 1986 after a seven-year stint at a high school in Kikuyu, Kiambu.

On arrival, I met the founding Principal Mr. Japheth Wambua (who had established Migori Teachers College in 1983-84) had been on site since November 1984 and had set up a formidable administration and was overseeing the construction of one of ten Diploma Colleges established by the McKay Commission on the Second University.

 Eventually, only Moi Teachers College, Kitui Teachers College, Laikipia Teachers College and Siriba Teachers College were established/promoted to Diploma Colleges.

These have since progressed to University of Eldoret, South Eastern University, Laikipia University, and Maseno University respectively. Japheth Wambua is a man of great energy and intellect and is a self-confessed workaholic.

 In order to establish a working curriculum, he would often call for meetings that would last for seven days (day and night) straight with room for short rests and meals provided in situ.

These meetings were held on the premises of the then Large Scale Farmers Training College (LSFTC) in an office complex (now called the Old Site) that was opened by late President Kenyatta in 1972. Initially, Moi Teachers College was allocated 400 acres in the ‘New Site’ out of 1050 acres of LSFTC land.

However local politicians led by Late MP Morogo arap Saina (an old student of LSFTC in mid 1950s) were opposed to the establishment of a Teachers College.

One morning in February 1985 President Moi passed by the College on his way to a wedding in Ziwa and found that the local swamp (going by the Kikuyu name ‘Marula’ or ‘Marura’) was on fire. This occurs every dry season which falls in February but rumour mills of the time suggested that Moi ordered the special branch to set the swamp on fire! On his way back he stopped at “Gate B’ and berated LSFTC for being careless in spite of hosting the Regional Soil Conservation Office and allowing a fire to get out of hand.

 He declared there and then that LSFTC should wind up its business and surrender all the land to Moi Teachers College! Thus LSFTC became MTC and four short years later (1990) MTC surrendered its facilities to Moi University (Chepkoilel Campus). Twenty three years later the campus became a chartered public institution, the University of Eldoret in 2013.

The University of Eldoret website claims that this institution was established in 1947 or 1948. Wrong! The Eldoret LSFTC was known as the Government Experimental Farm Eldoret from the 1920s to the early 1960s.

In fact, the first mention of ‘Government Experimental Farm Eldoret’ was in Kenya Gazette Notice Volume 23, No 754 of February 2, 1921, where Mr. James Johnson, BSc, N.D.A. was appointed Manager of the Government Experimental Farm Eldoret effective November 19, 1920.

 There is documentary evidence that the legendary Reserve Police Officer and Deputy Director of Starehe Boys Centre, Mr Patrick Shaw, worked and lived at Government Experimental Farm Eldoret in the late 1950s.

He probably occupied one of the senior (European) staff houses, now doubling as Bookshop, Student Centre, or Consumer Science Laboratories at the University of Eldoret.

 When the current bookshop burnt down in the early 2000s as a result of a search for honey by one watchman the roof had to be taken off and in the process, a mark made by a mason in the mortar was exposed. It read ‘built in 1947’.

Maybe this is what makes University of Eldoret officers think that the institution dates to this period. The current University of Eldoret Secondary School and a couple of houses in the Arboretum, near the sewage ponds, clearly date to the 1920s as they are made of bricks with ‘murram’ as mortar, a building technique of the early 20th Century found all over the ‘White Highlands’ in Kenya.

I often get amused when I realise that the excellent sports facilities at the University of Eldoret were set up on the personal initiative of Mr Japheth Wambua who, in 1985, often had to take over the bulldozer and personally level the Soccer field and Tennis pitches at the Old Site and the Soccer, Hockey and Basket ball pitches at the New Site.

In the 31 years, I have been at this institution the only improvement on sports facilities was the laying of the concrete slab on the basket ball pitch done under the watch of former Principal, Professor John Lonyangapuo together with the Commonwealth Champion as well as star of the 1975 Afro-Latin Games and Chepkoilel Campus Sports Officer Fatwell Kimaiyo