Editor, RE: “EAC seeks to learn higher education practices from Germany, Singapore” (The New Times, September 30). I agree with the writer. Quite often, parents force their children to do courses they do not like. To me, this is setting them up for failure. Even when their children managed to graduate, it would be hard for them to compete for jobs with students who did courses they were passionate about. Performance is also likely going to be a big issue if they are lucky to get employed. Universities should not only offer courses that are relevant to the job market but those courses should also qualify to be university courses. Sometime ago, President Yoweri Museveni ordered universities to remove conflict resolution from the list of degrees they were offering. His reasoning was that conflict resolution courses could be added to other degree programs such as political science. He was right. In North America, no university offers conflict resolution as a standalone degree. Anyone can go to any college or university and study conflict resolution at certificate or diploma level only, but not as a university programme. You do not even have to have a degree to qualify for admission. I believe it is the same in Germany. In Rwanda, we also need to review our degree programmes to ensure that we do not offer university degrees that are equivalent to diplomas in the western world. I have always wondered why we have a university of tourism and hotel management when many such programmes are offered at college level in the West. I think there is a need to review the level of course contents, adjust or even add additional ones before we discover that we have been selling Mercedes Benz with Mazda engines at a regular price. In Canada, colleges are now beginning to upgrade hotel management programmes to degree level, but to date, I am not aware of any university that offers the programme. Kelly
