The Uganda Management Institute (UMI) is planning an architectural masterpiece at its new centre in Kamukuzi, Mbarara.

According to UMI director general Dr James Nkata, the new centre, will be built on five acres of land offered by the Mbarara district council.

"[The] masterpiece, [will be] fully equipped with computer laboratories, library facilities and classrooms," Nkata announced at UMI's 10th graduation ceremony last week. Construction is scheduled to start in three months and the project will be completed in less than two years.

The building, according to Nkata, will have a five-storey structure with two levels of parking and teaching facilities to accommodate 2,000 students at any time. The Kamukuzi campus will be the first built centre for UMI, after its Jinja Road headquarters.

The institute also has centres in Mbale and Gulu, where it recently held graduation ceremonies. During the Mbarara ceremony, 182 students received diplomas, postgraduate diplomas and Master's degrees.

Of these, 67 were female and 115 male. With this ceremony, the UMI has graduated 2,081 participants from all its centres, this year. In its wide-ranging plans for the new academic year, the UMI is also introducing three new programmes, including a PhD in Management and Administration; a Master's degree in Public Procurement and another in Higher Education and Management.

All courses are fully accredited by the National Council for Higher Education and have attracted wide attention: there are 70 applications for the PhD course alone, the highest number for a course of this level. Most institutions usually have one or two students.

The UMI head assured the public that the institution would hold stringent standards for all its courses through pre-entry examinations to screen the quality of the applicants and would attract "a very highly respected team of visiting professors in the various disciplines from major universities abroad".

The institute is also working on a partnership with the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) to establish a Pan-African India Africa Institute of Foreign Trade, the first of its kind in the country.

He explains that the move is based on Uganda's historical trade relationship with India.