By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News
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| Rev. Dr. Thaddeus Mkamwa |
Known for its excellence in Journalism and Communications studies within AMECEA Region and beyond, St. Augustine University of Tanzania SAUT is one of the private universities in Tanzania owned by the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) and was established in 1998.
According to SAUT-Vice Chancellor Rev. Dr. Thaddeus Mkamwa, the university had its humble beginning as an institute in the 1960’s by then known as Nyegezi Social Training Centre (NSTC) which was established to cater the educational needs of the Catholic Church in the country and as a preparation of middle level staff who would serve the young country which was about to received its independence from the British in 1961.
The centre was later on developed into and Institute with courses being under taken under the new name Nyegezi Social Training Institute (NSTI). This was the time NSTI was offering courses for Diploma and Advanced Diploma on Accountancy, Material Management and Journalism. During that time there was also a ‘Tailor- Made’ certificate course known as ‘AMECEA’ specifically meant for Church employees from AMECEA member countries in areas of Finance and Hospital Administration. NSTI was admitting students from both central and Eastern Africa, but still the students population was hardly more than 400. The institute grew up slowly and in the year 1998, it became a fully-fledged university bearing the name St Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT). SAUT was registered by Tanzanian government under the Higher Education Council of Tanzania, which is currently - Tanzania Commission for Universities. Things changed very quickly since then, as the current students’ population at the main campus alone is over 8000.
Rev. Dr. Mkamwa attributes this growth to the high standard of teaching and values held by the university. “As a Catholic University, SAUT is a value-driven university in the sense that we are trying to make sure that as we train people to be professionals, they also get values of good citizenship and others that are important for any academician,” he said adding that “the mission of SAUT is the Holistic Development of persons. We want to impart to people academic and professional values and also make sure that they grow into well balanced human beings.”
Dr. Mkamwa told AMECEA Online News that as much as SAUT is credited for excellence in communication and journalism studies, whereby the university is offering up to PhD degrees in Mass Communications; it is also doing pretty well in other faculties such as the Faculty of Law, which goes up to PhD level, Faculty of Business Administration which goes up to Masters level and Masters in economics.
Other Faculties include Education, which is currently the largest and offers up to Masters Degree in Education, Management and Planning, and Faculty of Engineering, which is divided into electrical and Civil Engineering.
SAUT has adopted the Multi-City University Model, which is actually an idea from the University of California (UCLA) in the USA. The idea is to have a university which has many stake holders with various specialization.
Three former constituent colleges of SAUT have already developed into fully-fledged universities from 2010. These include Bugando University College, which is the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences. It has over 2000 students, specializing in Medicine and Allied science courses. The second is Mwenge University College, now Mwenge Catholic University in Moshi – Kilimanjaro region, and the third one is Ruaha Catholic University in Iringa.
“SAUT is still nurturing other constituent colleges. In 2009, we established Stellamaris Mtwara University College. In 2010 we established Archbishop Mihayo University College of Tabora and in the same year we established Jordan University College in Morogoro,” he said adding “Within the same year we established St. Francis University College of Health and Allied Sciences at St Francis referral Hospital Ifakara. In 2011 we established Archbishop James University College of Songea. We also established SAUT Bukoba Centre now called Cardinal Rugambwa Memorial University College, Mbeya, Arusha and Dar-es-salaam Centres which hopefully will develop into fully-fledged universities in the future.”
The Motto of SAUT is Building the City of God. “This is one of the quotes of St. Augustine who conceptualized about the city of God. What we are trying to do is to create the presence of God in our communities,” Dr. Mkamwa expained.
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