University of Burundi

The University of Burundi is located in Bujumbura, Burundi. It is the only public university in Burundi. Most of its facilities are deteriorating and significantly damaged due to civil war. In its infancy, it was owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Church. Its enrollment is approximately 13,000.

At the beginning of the 1960s, higher education in Burundi was composed of three institutions: the Institute of Agriculture of Ruanda-Urundi, the institut facultaire of Usumbura (University institute of Usumbura), and the Faculty of Science of Usumbura. In 1964, these three institutions merged to create the official University of Bujumbura, known as the Université officielle de Bujumbura (UOB).

In 1965, the teacher training college known as Ecole Normale supérieure, ENS, (Teacher's School) was created with the mission of training junior secondary school teachers. In 1972, the national school of administration known as Ecole nationale d’administration, ENA (National Advanced School for Administration) was established for training civil servants.

In 1973, the UOB, ENS, and ENA merged to create the University of Burundi. This fusion was not carried out immediately: the ENA was integrated into the faculty of economics and administration of the UOB in 1975, and the UOB and the ENS were merged only in 1977.

At the beginning of the 1980s, four other non-university higher education institutions were created to train the technical staff required by the civil service. This includes the School of Journalism, the School of Commerce, the Institute of Town Planning and Development, and the Institute of Agriculture.

In 1989, these institutions were integrated into the University of Burundi. The major objective of this integration was to optimize the resources allocated to higher education. In the process of integration, the School of Commerce changed its name to become the Institute of Commerce.

The enrollment growth in higher education in Burundi was slightly higher than in sub-Saharan Africa. The operation of the university has been significantly disturbed since 1993 by a socio-political crisis, in particular, through student and staff strikes, delays in academic programs, closure of campuses, problems obtaining books and equipment, and a massive brain drain of the academic staff. The University was ethnically cleansed of its Hutu students in 1995. Since its inception, the University of Burundi (UB) has decided to focus on training the categories of personnel required by the civil service.

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