Mungwira certified as a doctor in the United Kingdom before returning to Africa to practice in the territory known as Nyasaland under British colonial rule, in today's Malawi and Zimbabwe.
[1] Mungwira's early education took place at the Howard Institute, a school run by a Salvation Army Mission in the town of Glendale, a village in today's Mazowe District, Mashonaland Central province of Zimbabwe.
Later she undertook secondary studies at Inanda Seminary School followed by Fort Hare University, where she graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree in 1954.
[2][1][3] Fort Hare University was an institution that served only black students, due to the system of apartheid in South Africa at the time.
On her return, Mungwira expressed a preference to practice medicine at a rural hospital in her home province of Nyasaland where she grew up.