History and Background
Kamagambo University is a Seventh-day Adventist university at Kamagambo in Rongo, Migori County, Kenya. Adventist educational work began on this site in 1912, formal teacher training started in 1928, and on 15 September 2026 President William Ruto granted the institution a Letter of Interim Authority — making Kamagambo Kenya’s 90th university and the third owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the country.
A mission station becomes a school (1908–1928)
The story begins in 1908, when the pioneer Adventist missionary Arthur A. Carscallen hosted the German missionary Ludwig R. Conradi at Gendia. The two set out to find a site for a new mission and travelled some forty miles to a place called Kamagambo. Educational work followed at the station from 1912 — the year carried on the university crest to this day — and Carscallen went on to serve as principal from 1916 to 1920.
In 1922 Grace Clarke joined the station and opened a school for girls, at a time when few institutions in the region educated women at all. The decisive year, however, was 1928, when E. R. Warland persuaded the colonial authorities to license Kamagambo to train teachers. The new training school offered a two-year course to students who had completed their early education. By 1929 it had already graduated twenty-three teachers, with some forty more in class.
The oldest teacher training institution in Kenya
Kamagambo has trained teachers without interruption since 1928, which makes it the oldest formal teacher training institution in Kenya. For much of the twentieth century it was funded directly by the Northern European Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church — one of only seven institutions the division managed anywhere in the world, and the only one in Africa.
Generations of teachers trained at Kamagambo have staffed classrooms across Nyanza, the wider Kenyan school system and beyond. That reputation for teacher formation is the foundation the university is built on, and it remains at the centre of what the institution does.
University status (2026)
On Tuesday 15 September 2026, at the Kisumu State Lodge during a development tour of the Nyanza region, President William Ruto presented Kamagambo with a Letter of Interim Authority. The instrument, issued on the advice of the Commission for University Education (CUE), allows the institution to establish its governing bodies, build its academic resources and operate as a university while it works toward a full charter.
The President was explicit that the step is a beginning rather than an arrival: “The word ‘interim’ matters. Kamagambo has crossed the threshold, but it has not reached its destination.” He also told the institution that access and quality must travel together — “access without quality disappoints the student and quality without relevance disappoints the nation.”
Three degree programmes were approved at the same time: the Bachelor of Education in Arts, the Bachelor of Arts in Theology with Entrepreneurship, and the Bachelor of Business Administration with Entrepreneurship. The university is led by Prof. Rei Towet Kesis as Founding Principal and Vice-Chancellor.
Where Kamagambo sits in Adventist higher education
Kamagambo is the third private university operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kenya, after the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton and the Adventist University of Africa at Ongata Rongai. It grew into university status as a constituent college of Baraton, and retains close ties with the wider Adventist education network across East Africa.
What has not changed
Whatever the letterhead says, the educational philosophy is the one Kamagambo has held since the mission station days: an education that develops the whole person — mental, spiritual, physical and social. Students of every faith and background are welcome, and the campus is built around scholarship, character and service. You can read the full statement of mission and faith, or see how the institution is governed.
Common questions
Adventist educational work at Kamagambo dates to 1912 and teacher training began in 1928. The institution received university status through a Letter of Interim Authority on 15 September 2026.
The campus is at Kamagambo on the Rongo–Kisii Road, in Rongo, Migori County, in south-western Kenya. Kamagambo sits on the Migori–Kisii county boundary.
It is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and is the third Adventist private university in Kenya.
Yes — it is the same institution. Kamagambo Adventist Teachers’ College transitioned into Kamagambo University when the Letter of Interim Authority was granted in September 2026.