All students who want to enroll in health-related programs like medicine, pharmacy, nursing and psychology among others will have to be indexed in their respective councils ahead of enrollment. This is according to the new directive announced by the Ministry of Health, the Higher Education Council and Rwanda Allied Health Professions Council in a press conference held at the ministry’s headquarters on Friday, November 26. The development comes after a range of issues presented by students who often meet difficulties in getting equivalence certificates, due to different reasons. “This is a decision we came up with, as the ministries of health and education as well as all the health professions councils. Having the students registered ahead of time will ease getting equivalence transcripts,” noted Patrick Ndimubanzi, the Executive Secretary of Human Resource for Health Secretariat (HRHS). “We are doing this to ensure enough healthcare quality and professionalism in the medical sector. I don’t know if you can imagine how the society is affected when a doctor who receives tens of patients a day is unqualified,” he questioned. Commenting on the decision, Theoneste Ndikubwimana, the head of Academic quality, accreditation, standards and qualification framework at the Higher Education Council, also said that the development will prevent loss of time and money often encountered by students who did not get equivalences. “If a student is going for medical studies in DRC, they will first be indexed in a Rwandan council. This will prevent them from harvesting nothing after investing six years of studies and the school fees,” he explained. Apart from the developments, the ministry of health has also increased the number of licensing exams to one per three months to facilitate the graduates on the labour market. Asked on the fate of Cavendish and other two universities whose students HEC announced were not ready for the labour market, the health ministry officials said that they have negotiated with the labour and public service ministry to give them a grace period of two years as they integrate in Rwandan universities to get accredited degrees. ydia Mutavu, holds a bachelor’s degree in Nursing and midwifery from Uganda, but her hands are still blocked to access a related job in Rwanda. She hails the initiative saying that it took a long time to obtain equivalences, which she says has been simplified. “Once a student will be indexed ahead of time, the long procedures won’t be needed because they are already recognized by the institution,” she said.
