Last Updated on January 16, 2023
If you are looking for the oldest universities in Africa, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of the top 10 oldest universities in Africa, their year of establishment, and some of their notable alumni.
Table of Contents
1. University of Al-Karaouine
- Location: Fes, Morocco
- Established in: 859 AD
The University of Al-Karaouine or Al-Qarawiyyin was founded by Fatima al-Fihri (the daughter of a wealthy merchant named Mohammed Al-Fihri) in 859 with an associated madrasa. It is the first university in Africa.
It is one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the Muslim world and is considered the oldest continuously operating institution of higher learning in the world.
The University of Al-Karaouine is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest continuously operating, degree-granting university.
The university can boast of notable alumni such as Leo Africanus, Muhammad al-Idrisi (a geographer), and the Jewish philosopher, Maimonides.
2. Al-Azhar University
- Location: Cairo, Egypt
- Established in: 972 AD
The University of Al-Azhar” is a university associated with Al-Azhar Mosque in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt’s oldest degree-granting university and is renowned as “Sunni Islam’s most prestigious university”.
Studies began in Al-Azhar in Ramadan by October 975 AD, when Chief Justice Abul Hasan Ali ibn Al-No’man started teaching the book “Al-Ikhtisar”, on the Shiite jurisprudence.
Founded in 970 or 972 by the Fatimids as a center of Islamic learning, its students studied the Qur’an and Islamic law in detail, along with logic, grammar, rhetoric, and how to calculate the phases of the moon.
It was one of the first universities in the world, and the only one in the Arabic world to survive as a modern university including secular subjects in the curriculum.
Today it is the chief center of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. In 1961 additional non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum. As a result, it is considered that it became a modern university in that year (1961).
3. Fourah Bay College – University of Sierra Leone
- Location: Freetown, Sierra Leone
- Established in: 1827
Fourah Bay College is a public university in the neighborhood of Mount Aureol in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Founded on 18 February 1827, it is the oldest university in West Africa and the first western-style university built in West Africa. It is a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone.
The university can boast of several important Sierra Leone politicians and some Ghanaians who played important roles in Ghana’s independence (Kojo Botsio, Casely Hayford).
4. University of Cape Town
- Location: Cape Town, South Africa
- Established in: 1829
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African college making it the oldest higher education institute in South Africa.
It is jointly the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Saharan Africa alongside Stellenbosch University which received full university status on the same day in 1918.
UCT is the highest-ranked African university in the QS World University Rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and its Law and Commerce Faculties are consistently placed among the hundred best internationally.
UCT was also recently ranked as the best university in Africa when it comes to graduate employability.
Notable alumni are Ralph Bunche, Max Theiler, Allan McLeod Cormack, Aaron Klug, and Professor Emeritus J. M. Coetzee…all are Nobel Prize winners for amazing works in their various fields.
5. Cairo University
- Location: Giza, Egypt
- Established in: 1908
Cairo University in Egypt was founded on Dec. 21, 1908. It was previously “Egyptian University” and later ”Fuad University”.
Cairo University was founded as a European-inspired civil university, in contrast to the religious university of Al Azhar, and became the prime indigenous model for other state universities.
Cairo University is usually ranked among the top universities in Egypt, and one of the top universities in Africa.
Cairo University notable alumni include Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Saddam Hussein, Mohamed Morsi, Naguib Mahfouz (Nobel prize winner), Yasser Arafat (Nobel Peace Prize winner), Mohamed ElBaradei (Nobel Peace Prize winner), and Taher Elgamal, designer of the ElGamal encryption system and considered “Father of SSL“.
6. University of Algiers
- Location: Algiers, Algeria
- Established in: 1909
The University of Algiers stemmed from various higher-education institutions created in the 19th century under the French colonial rule in Algeria’s 1st University.
It is called Mother university and is situated in the capital of Algeria, Algiers.
Some notable alumni of the University of Algiers include Albert Camus, Elias Zerhouni, and Lakhdar Brahimi.
7. Makerere University
- Location: Kampala, Uganda
- Established in: 1922
Makerere University, Kampala is Uganda’s largest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922.
In 1963, it became the University of East Africa, offering courses leading to general degrees from the University of London.
It became an independent national university in 1970 when the University of East Africa was split into three independent universities: the University of Nairobi (Kenya), the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), and Makerere University.
Today, Makerere University is composed of nine colleges and one school offering programs for about 36,000 undergraduates and 4,000 postgraduates.
Makerere University boasts of several political figures who served their country, Uganda, and other African leaders such as Mwai Kibaki, Joseph Kabila, Benjamin Mkapa, and Julius Nyerere.
8. University of Ghana
- Location: Legon – Accra, Ghana
- Established in: 1948
The University of Ghana is the oldest and largest of the many Ghanaian public universities and gained full university status in 1961, and now has nearly 40,000 students.
It was founded in 1948 in the British colony of the Gold Coast, as the University College of the Gold Coast, and was originally an affiliate of the college of the University of London, which supervised its academic programs and awarded degrees.
The original emphasis was on the liberal arts, social sciences, law, basic science, agriculture, and medicine.
However, as part of a national educational reform program, the university’s curriculum was expanded to provide more technology-based and vocational courses as well as postgraduate training.
It also has a graduate school of nuclear and Allied Sciences at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, making it one of the few universities on the Africa continent offering programs in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering.
Notable alumni include 3 presidents of Ghana, Akua Kuenyehia, Komla Dumor, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, etc.
9. University of Ibadan
- Location: Ibadan, Nigeria
- Established in: 1948
The University of Ibadan (UI) is the oldest Nigerian university and is located five miles (8 kilometers) from the center of the major city of Ibadan in Western Nigeria. It is popularly known as Unibadan or UI.
The university has residential and sports facilities for staff and students on campus, as well as separate botanical and zoological gardens.
One most popular Unibadan alumni are Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature.
10. University of Zimbabwe
- Location: Harare, Zimbabwe
- Established in: 1952
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) in Harare, is the oldest and top-ranked university in Zimbabwe. It was founded through a special relationship with the University of London and it opened its doors to its first students in 1952.
The main campus of the University of Zimbabwe is located in the Mount Pleasant suburb in northern Harare.
The major satellite campus is the Medical School campus at Parirenyatwa Hospital in central Harare. It houses the College of Health Sciences. Additional university properties within Harare include blocks of flats for staff and student housing in Avondale, the Avenues, and Mount Pleasant.