Gulu University Strives to Transform Communities

Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Openjuru George Ladaah on why Gulu University and not any other:

Anybody interested in rural Development or community transformation should come to Gulu University. This call is based on the fact that Gulu University is an Agriculturally focused University, and all our programs are geared towards the promotion of Agri-activity for the rural community.

This focus includes Medicine, where we train for rural-based health facilities; in Education, we train teachers for rural schools and Agricultural Education.

When it comes to Business, we focus on Agri-entrepreneurship and Agricultural Business management. In science, we are doing scientific studies in Malaria and Mosquito insecticide resistance, mycotoxin and food safety in Northern Uganda, including identifying causative agents associated with Nodding syndrome. In the Faculty of Law and Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, we are focusing on Land dispute resolution as this affects agricultural productivity and proper land use and ownership. Generally, our University focuses on improving rural community life.

In actual sense, we produce practice-oriented graduates who are capable of working anywhere, including hard to reach locations because of our community transformation philosophy that gets them attached to the rural community during their training and this cannot be compromised as a training agenda.

What is Gulu University doing to produce more problem solvers to the communities as one of the critical pillars in National Development?

Our focus on practice-oriented training using transformative pedagogy which aims at producing critical thinkers who are problem solvers. Our assessment method emphasizes critical thinking. This transformative pedagogy has been developed under a project known as Transforming Employability For Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA).

Gulu University in the next five years?

I see a robust University which is efficient in handling student population of about 10,000 with over eight faculties and about 200 programmes with enough senior academic staff (professors).

What message do you have for prospective students?

If you want a University Education that will not leave you stranded (Unemployed) after graduation, you should come to Gulu University because graduates from Gulu University are on very high demand because of their culture of discipline and hard work.