Burundian students at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) who have not been paying fees will not be expelled as earlier feared, The New Times has learnt.

This comes after last week’s two-day bilateral meeting – the Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) on cooperation between Rwanda and Burundi that recommended the students continue studying with no interruption.

Equally, Rwandan students in the National University of Burundi will complete their studies with no disturbances.

Joseph Kabakeza, Rwanda’s Director General of bilateral and multilateral cooperation, said an agreement between the two universities on an exchange programme for students and lecturers was signed in 1995, but is continuously violated.

"When an audit was done at NUR, it was discovered that a big number of Burundian students did not pay fees, thinking that since they were international students, they assumed they were in the framework of the agreement,” Kabakeza said.

He stressed that the understanding was that this was an exchange program where students from either institutions could pursue certain courses, in which they lacked lecturers.

"The meeting therefore, resolved to solve this problem – those who had completed their studies should not be penalized and should be given their credentials,” said Kabakeza.

"And it resolved that this agreement be renewed or revived to cater for different specifics in either university because it seemed that the old agreement was really not fitting the current framework of the universities nor the changes that have been taking place in the universities since 1995.”

The meeting also discussed cooperation in diplomatic relations, movement of persons, agriculture, economy and finance, infrastructure, security, justice and border demarcation.

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