Bulletin

Issue: June 2005

News

Graduating in his family's footsteps

More than 20 years ago Dr Will Kaberuka - now economic advisor to the President of Uganda - graduated with his PhD in economics from La Trobe University.

Emmanuel Kaberuka and his parents,
after his graduation in May. Below,
same place 21 years earlier, at his
father's graduation. Photo: Southam Studios

That was in April 1984. After the ceremony there were many well-wishers, among them his son Emmanuel, then aged two years.

In May this year Dr Kaberuka - accompanied by his wife, Jane, a well-known East African author and Ugandan senior public servant - revisited La Trobe, to return those wishes when Emmanuel was awarded his Bachelor of Economics (Hon) degree.

Emmanuel Kaberuka was among some 300 graduates who received their degrees and diplomas at a ceremony on the University's main Melbourne campus at Bundoora. He was born in Australia in 1981 while both his parents studied at La Trobe and now works as a regulatory graduate with Telstra in Melbourne.

Dr Will Kaberuka taught at the University of Papua New Guinea after completing his studies at La Trobe. In 1986 he was invited back to Uganda and appointed to his present post by President Yoweri Museveni following that country's five-year liberation struggle from the rule of Idi Amin and Milton Obote.

Mrs Kaberuka, who works in the Ombudsman's Office of the Ugandan Inspectorate of Government, is also a La Trobe graduate, having received her Bachelor of Education degree in 1982.

She has written four novels, including Silent Patience, published by Femrite, an association of Ugandan women writers. The book is a family saga of three generations of a Tutsi family and deals with change relating to gender, tradition and sectarianism.