ORT Uruguay Highlights


By Charlotte de Grünberg - Director General- ORT Uruguay

The granting by the Ministry of Education of full university status to ORT Uruguay came after many years of development and consolidation of the institution. In order to understand the current ORT Uruguay activities, it may help to follow the historical development of ORT in the country.

ORT Uruguay is a member of World ORT whose history can be traced back to St Petersburg in Russia where it was founded in 1880. Few organisations can praise themselves of such an active, significant and continuous existence for more than 128 years. Much has changed since then, yet the spirit remains. ORT Uruguay still offers quality education and training adapted to the local needs. ORT Uruguay is in the forefront of methodological innovation both for learning and for teaching as well as in its use of new technologies. At the same time ORT Uruguay is specially sensitive to the disadvantaged and impoverished communities offering them education and training adapted to their specific needs.

ORT Uruguay was founded in 1942 in Montevideo, by members of the Uruguayan Jewish community that wanted to help the waves of immigrants fleeing from Europe, by teaching them a trade in order to allow their insertion in the Uruguayan economy. The activities started on rented premises. In September 1958 a building was purchased by Asociación Uruguaya ORT totally financed with local donations.

During the fifties, sixties and seventies, ORT Uruguay strengthened and expanded its educational project to the whole society while at the same time specialising in more advanced technological areas and providing vocational training to the technicians and professionals that the country needed.

In the eighties ORT Uruguay grew fast to become a key institution in the country regarding training in Electronics, Telecommunications and Computer Science. Both the number of students and ORT´s development in terms of facilities and technology resources showed continuous growth in this period. In 1989, ORT turned into the largest non-governmental organisation for technical education in Uruguay (Educational Statistics Yearbook, Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, 1990).

In the seventies three Jewish K-9 day-schools existed which were in the process of becoming a full K-12 network (from Kindergarden to matriculation). In order not to compete but rather to complete the Jewish educational system in the country, decision was made in the early eighties to focus ORT Uruguay activities in supporting the existing Jewish schools and teaching technical and higher education courses.

In 1985, ORT Uruguay requested the official recognition of its System Analysis and Electronics degrees to the Ministry of Education and Culture. Official recognition of the System Analysis degree was the first one, ever, to be awarded to a non-governmental educational institution in the country. These areas of study eventually became part of the Bernard Wand-Polak School of Engineering in 1996.


Bernard Wand-Polak was World ORT Director for Latin America between 1967 and 1983. In the sixties and seventies, he was well known for his vision on the importance that Computer Science and Electronics would have for countries-development. Under his leadership ORT computer centres were created in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

In the late eighties, ORT Uruguay started to expand and diversify its educational programmes according to the needs of the Uruguayan economy and society. In 1988 the Business School was founded. It was the first business school established in the country and was lately transformed into the School of Administration and Social Sciences. Since 1996, this School has been ranked among the thirty best business schools in Latin America and it has been leader in the modernisation of the education in management in our country (América Economía magazine).

In 1995, ORT Uruguay started the first university degree in Design in Uruguay. In 1996 ORT Uruguay started developing degrees in the field of communications studies: Journalism, Audio-visual Production, Advertising, Sound Engineering and Digital Animation. All these degrees are taught at the School of Communications and Design.
In 1995, the Uruguayan government enacted the first legal framework for private universities in the country. In February 1996 ORT was the first Uruguayan institution to request the legal authorisation to function as a private university. This authorisation was awarded in September 1996. In this way, ORT Uruguay was the first institution recognized as a private university within the new legal framework and took the name Universidad ORT Uruguay.

After obtaining official recognition, three new academic departments were created: the Institute of Education in 1998, the School of Architecture in 1999 and the Department of Jewish Studies in 2003, consolidating several years of activities in this last field.

ORT Uruguay University has been developing research and development activities in the field of education for over 20 years so far. In this framework experimental projects in the fields of Educational Computing were recognised locally and internationally receiving among others the Computer Science National Award in 1980 and the Regional Centre for the Teaching of Computer Science Silver Award from Spain in 1982. In 1996 ORT Uruguay established a programme of academic co-operation with the Harvard Graduate School of Education and started offering postgraduate programmes in the field of education. In 1998, these programmes became part of the Institute of Education.

In 1999, the School of Architecture was launched to offer undergraduate programmes in Architecture as well as postgraduate courses and technical degrees in the fields of Architecture, Building and Construction and Interior Design. ORT Uruguay University is the only private university that offers an officially recognized degree in Architecture. Before the official recognition as university, ORT Uruguay University was already perceived as such by the community at large due to its resources, dimensions, teachers, graduates and study programmes.

ORT Uruguay University is currently the largest private university in Uruguay. More than 11.000 students in 5 schools and institutes are housed in over 20.000 square meters. 28 undergraduate and graduate degrees in Architecture, Engineering, Business, Economics, International Relations, Design, Communications and Education are taught.

ORT Uruguay University is a member of the main international academic associations such as the International Association of Universities and the Unión de Universidades de América Latina and has academic agreements with more than a hundred universities in Latin America, North America, Europe and Israel.

The academic staff consists of over 700 teachers and researchers, many of them with full time appointments and postgraduate training, including more than 50 PhDs and doctoral candidates.

ORT Uruguay University carries out applied research in all its schools in close contact with enterprises and research centres. An extensive network of international agreements facilitates the exchange of teachers and students and allows for joint research.


Students and teachers have access to two specialized libraries with more than 68.000 books and periodical publications. Library items have increased by 800% since 1993. The libraries have reading halls, workshop rooms and access to the main databases of bibliographic search of the world as well as online magazines, journals and books.

The technological infrastructure of academic support includes more than 700 last generation computers connected to high speed networks as well as Electronics, Telecommunications and Photography labs and Radio and TV studios for professional production.

Students and graduates are given support in their job search and enterprise creation. More than 9.000 graduates are successful in their professional fields and many of them work in enterprises created by themselves. In co-operation with the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay (LATU) and the support of the International Development Bank (IDB), ORT Uruguay University launched the first business incubator in Uruguay oriented to foster emerging entrepreneurs and enterprises in the fields of Telecommunications and Computer Science.

Historically committed to offering quality education guided by the principle of equal opportunity, ORT Uruguay University sponsors a scholarship programme which benefits more than 1.700 students per year. This allows for an inclusive and heterogeneous composition of the student body where young people from different social backgrounds and regions interact and study together.

ORT Uruguay University has been ranked since 2005 among the world´s top 500 universities by the annual Times Higher Education(THE) World Ranking of Universities. In 2005 the study programme of Electronic Engineering was accredited under the Mercosur experimental accreditation procedures.

In an ever changing world where professions evolve quickly, some trades disappear and new ones are born everyday, now as well as before, ORT seeks to give its students the best education and invests all its resources to achieve that goal. Many people have contributed to the success of ORT Uruguay University, volunteer workers and professionals - men and women - have devoted time, resources and their commitment to make ORT the great organisation we know today. It is a remarkable history, full of life, that constitutes both a good omen and a challenge for the future.