Eighteen months ago, the University of Rwanda came into force following the merger of all public universities in the country. The university, which recently graduated over 8,000 students in its second graduation, continues to make attempts towards fulfilling its mandate amidst various emerging issues and challenges. Prof. Nelson Ijumba, the deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs and research at the university, spoke to The New Times’ Collins Mwai about the progress made and emerging issues.

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Despite impressive numbers of graduates, there are concerns by a section of employers on their quality and relevance to the job market. How is the university responding to this concern?

This issue is not just a Rwandan problem; it is almost across the world. Going by a report produced last year rating different countries on the basis of how employers perceive graduates, Rwanda was not rated very badly.

The main challenge is that the job market is very dynamic, the demands are different from what they were a few years back and the university has to respond accordingly. The main complaint employers have is that graduates have the necessary technical knowledge, but lack softer skills like communication skills, ability to work in teams, creative thinking and critical thinking, among others. What we have done as the University of Rwanda is that we are progressively introducing innovation and entrepreneurship in the curriculum. Each college has an innovation programme and a sub-programme where the idea is to inculcate innovation and entrepreneurship in students so that when they finish, they are not just looking for jobs but also opportunities where they can be job creators.

We have had a series of conferences and workshops on innovation and entrepreneurship ahead of a continental one coming up later this year.

We are also trying to work closely with employers with an objective of having them on advisory boards to involve them in decisions such as curriculum reviews. The third intervention is by pushing for internships so that our students get attached in relevant areas to hone their skills. We are having discussions with relevant authorities to achieve the objective.

Have you thought about working with other universities which have figured a way around the challenge?

Partnerships are one of the strategies of promoting the quality of the university and also our global ranking. It is a good way to grow for a university like ours as you can exchange staff and share expertise, among other benefits. We have a number of partner universities in and outside the region. We are also part of the Inter-university Council of East Africa, which also facilitates partnerships among universities and students. Our staff benefit from it a lot as they accumulate experience.

You mention global rankings, why are they important to the university?

Participation in rankings is very important for benchmarking; it helps you rate yourself among the best and you are able to know that what you are doing is quality work. If you benchmark yourself against the best and you improve, you know that you are doing something productive. The participation is not to be ranked high, it is to benchmark and compare yourself against other top performers.

Improving the position in the rankings has several advantages; people generally notice that University of Rwanda is offering substance in terms of teaching, which attracts donors. It means that if you are looking for funding for research and your ranking is good, you are more likely to attract more international researchers and funding.

As a well ranked facility, you are likely to attract better staff, good rankings have a multiplier effect.

Parents also tend to send their children to well-ranked schools.

The rankings have different criteria, among them research, quality of teaching staff, proportion of foreign students and foreign staff (it shows diversity), community engagement and funds attracted in terms of grants, among other criteria.

How do you fair in terms of international students, which is one of the criteria for rankings?

We have been showing improvement for the last two years; now our proportion of international students is about 5 per cent of the total student population. Most of them are from the region.

We would like to push it to about 10 or 15 per cent. How we go about it is by advertising the post-graduate programmes which can attract people from across the continent. We are also in the process of partnering with an Australian foundation which will see us jointly establish an entrepreneurship programme which can attract students from different parts of the world. We believe that the initiative will increase the number of foreign students at the undergraduate level.

We still have a large number of people who prefer to go abroad for their post-graduate studies; can we say it is because of failure by the university to meet their expectations?

It is historical and it is understandably so. There are some areas where our research and training facilities are not up international standards. Others want to go abroad for exposure, but it is not necessarily true that what is offered abroad is better than what is offered here. There are some areas where Rwanda offers a better environment and we have people coming from Europe to study in Africa.A few months back we had a reader comment in this newspaper about the bureaucracy the merger of the universities had created and the consequent inefficiency in some administrative procedures. Is that true?

That was the perception; we have put in place systems to decentralise procedures which make it very easy now.

People do not have to come to the main university for most processes; college administrations have the autonomy to make decisions. Some of the human resource decisions can also be taken at college level. Very few decisions require authorisation by the main university administration. Even at college level, principals have empowered certain people to take some decisions. The systems were in place and probably not well-understood.

There has been a lot of stream lining and devolution.

There have been concerns as to why some colleges are spread in two or three different campuses and districts, which makes running them expensive due to logistical challenges.

Every system has its advantages and disadvantages; the mandate of the university is to improve the rationalisation of the institutions so that they are cost effective. One thing that needs to be understood is the university has presence across the whole country. That results in some colleges having operations in different campuses that are far apart. Because of that, we looked at rationalisation of colleges to have different courses.

For example, for sciences, there are campuses in Nyarugenge, Huye and Nyagatare. The logic was that each campus was located where it would be more relevant to the communities around it. For instance, the College of Science and Technology next to the city is close to industries. As for management of the various colleges, we depend on ICT as well as deans and college coordinators.

What is the university’s students intake like?

Last year, we registered over 12,600 students and only about 6,000 came through – it was a big drop. This year, we have admitted over 15,000 and we have been informed that 11,000 others will get scholarships.

We, however, need to educate people that they can study at the University of Rwanda and pay for themselves, there is an assumption that for one to study at a public-funded university, they must be sponsored. We encourage those who do not get bursaries or loans to come and pay for themselves.

As a higher education stakeholder, are you concerned about the entrance of multiple private institutions accused of compromising quality?

Of course, we would be concerned if anybody is compromising the quality of education; we would hope that all institutions in the country are offering quality. For that, we look up to the Higher Education Council (HEC) which is responsible for monitoring the quality of higher education. The public should also be made aware that someone graduating from a university that compromises on quality is not employable. HEC has to do its job to the effect.

There are also ongoing discussions with HEC to form an inter-university forum on quality with all universities in the country as members which will further the discussions around quality.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw