Before 1980, there was no Adventist University in East Africa and for this reason, students desiring to pursue higher education in an Adventist institution had to go outside Eastern Africa. During the I970’s, the Middle East College in Beirut, Lebanon, served many such students. Thus, there was a great need for a full-fledged university in Eastern Africa. Consequently, in October 1978, the Afro-Mideast Division of Seventh-day Adventists took an action to establish such an institution in Kenya on December 21, 1978.
The Kenya Government allotted 339 acres of the then Baraton Animal Husbandry Research Station in Nandi District to the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the purpose of founding what is now known as the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton. Classes began in September, 1979, in the temporary farm structures. Some of these structures have since been replaced with
modern buildings.
