While at a football match at Butobere in Kabale, Hadard Arinaitwe made up his mind to pursue his first degree at UCU. “I talked to students of Bishop Barharm, a UCU college, and the following day, I was on line checking the UCU website,”

He joined UCU in 2007 as a Bachelors of Economics student, a course that suited his dream of becoming a teacher of Economics, and later work with the Department of Economics under policy, formulation and analysis at national level.
“There is inefficiency in the policy formulation and there is need to upgrade it,” he says, affirming that he would be the right agent for a good change.
Hadard struggled with tuition in his first semester. His parents, who are peasants, could hardly raise the money for him to acquire his education. Fortunately, after his first semester, Scholars and Friends, a scholarship programme that takes on good performing students at UCU, awarded him with a scholarship. His burden was lifted.
He scored GPA of 4.69. What inspired him to work hard while at university, were the words of former presidents of South Africa, Nelson Mandela; ‘It’s only through education that that sons and daughters of peasants can become engineers, lawyers or doctors.’ This gave him the determination to look past his humble background and work toward a greater goal.
Hadard achieved his first objective of teaching just after his exams, when Ndejje University took him on as a Graduate Assistant in the Economics and trade department.
He hopes to give his best at the new job and later enroll for a postgraduate degree at Uganda management Institute (UMI) next year.
He scored a GPA 4.69 and he attributes his success to his parents, friends, Scholars and Friends and lecturers like Richard Ssebagala, who is his role model
To young people, he says, ‘be friends with books and if you are a BEM student, you may want to consider trade because Uganda considers it  a top priority.’