Musafiri on what East African Christian College offers

Former Minister of Education and Deputy Vice-Chancellor UR, Dr. Papias Musafiri Malimba was recently appointed Deputy Principal Academic Affairs and Research at the East African Christian College, a private and independent higher learning institution established by the Anglican Church of Rwanda. The seasoned educator who boasts 25 years of experience in the education sector sat down with The New Times to talk about the college, what it provides, and what he brings on board as an administrator. Read the excerpts of the interview here: To start the interview, tell us about this college, when it was established and what it provides. The East African Christian College (EACC) is one of the private higher learning institutions accredited to operate in Rwanda, and it started two years back. It was founded in 2020 by the House of Bishops of the Anglican church of Rwanda. It is one of those big projects owned by the church. The church has three pillars in its mission, namely, Evangelism, Health, and Education. This university is one of the tools used by the Anglican church to advance those three pillars. With evangelism EACC has a Faculty of Theology and Religion which is offering a Bachelor of Arts degree program in Theology. It is also offering Advanced Diploma in Theology, following the law which requires people practising evangelism to have a certain level of qualifications. For some who may have acquired degrees from fields apart from theology, they come here to have a Post Graduate Diploma in Theology. This is important for them to comply with the minimum qualifications needed for pastoral services. For the pillar of education, EACC has the faculty of education. We started with a program in Child Development. We are training professionals who are teaching in pre-primary education and development. It is like preparing the manpower to serve in the ECDs. We have more programs in the area of education which are in the process of accreditation. ECD is a growing field in Rwanda. ECDs need qualified teachers and caretakers for the little children in terms of hygiene and nutrition. Many people working in ECDs currently are doing it out of passion and experience, but did not have formal training. The Anglican church owns a lot of primary schools and ECDs. We are starting with those ones but we are not limiting ourselves to them. The College is soon rolling out short term Capacity Building courses for Teachers and caregivers from ECDs in all categories be it Institutional, Community or Home based ECDs. The training program focuses on key components of holistic child development including nutrition to fight stunting, promoting hygiene, positive parenting to name a few. Through the Faculty of Education and its ECD Centre of Excellence, the college provides consultancy services to other institutions in setting up and running their ECDs. The case example is the ECD at the City of Kigali head offices. We are having discussions to set up similar centres at Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Legacy Clinic and so on. For the third pillar which is health, EACC has the Faculty of health sciences where we provide an advanced diploma for general nursing and an advanced diploma in midwifery. We also have a bachelor's degree of Science in nursing and a bachelor's degree of science in midwifery. The College also has the Faculty of Business Management and Economics which started with a Bachelor’s degree programme in monitoring and evaluation. Through this Faculty, more programs in areas of Banking and Financial Services have been developed and are at advanced stages of accreditation. What is your vision for the development of ECDs in the country? First, the college is operating an ECD centre of Excellence which acts as a model to offer consultancy services for setting up and running EDCs in other institutions. Secondly the college is rolling out a professional capacity building program for teachers and caregivers in ECDs especially those who have not undergone any formal training in this field. Third, through the Faculty of Education, the College is developing a research niche in the areas of holistic child development to inform policy making in this field. We want to become the point of reference in the region as far as these three pillars are concerned. As the government requires pastors to have academic qualifications in Theology before they can be allowed to do clerical service, give me a picture of this college's contribution to equipping the pastors. How many students do you have in your faculty of Theology currently? The faculty of theology has around 350 students so far. We have full time students who stay here because we have accommodation. These are doing the bachelors in Theology. It takes about three and a half years for them to complete. We also have students who come on the weekend. These are a working population who pursue Postgraduate Diploma in Theology. We also have capacity building programs which are not designed for degree or diploma awards. We train leaders in churches in the matters of church projects which can tremendously transform the church members and communities in general. Our purpose is to equip servant leaders for the church and community and produce professional graduates of character and commitment to serve as agents of transformation. What are some of the academic programs in the pipeline? Our infrastructure and facilities capacity is currently under-utilised. We have a number of programs in the field of Education and Business Management which are in the process for accreditation by the Higher Education Council. We hope that the process will be concluded soon to allow the college to grow in terms of programs and number of students which is very fundamental for operational efficiency. We also intend to develop more programs in line with labour market needs, especially those that will focus on the future of work. some that are coming up but we don't push the crediting agency. They have to take their time to make sure that everything is okay in terms of the infrastructure, personnel, and programs. It takes time but eventually they will be accredited and we hope to see the college grow. While developing new programs, we are also cognizant of the need to have diversified programs in terms of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) in our quest to attain a full University status. You are an experienced educator. How important will your experience be to this institution? I think I am bringing the wealth of experience gathered from many years of serving in the education sector. I have been working in the sector for the last 25 years. But I can assure you that there are a lot of things to learn even here. I hold this position as an amazing opportunity to serve at such a young but dynamically growing institution and certainly my experience will help the College to grow in quantity and quality. Together with the members of the College leadership team, we have identified strategic areas for the college advancement which includes but not limited to; Review and development of new programs that are relevant, unique and market driven; Institutional Quality Management Systems and Standards; promotion of collaborative research with strong focus on multidisciplinary and impactful research and innovation, establish strong collaborations and strategic partnerships with regional and international reputable academic and research institutions, creating a comprehensive virtual learning environment just a few to mention. These strategic areas are currently being mainstreamed into the review and roll out of the institutional strategic plan. Does this college have partnerships with institutions around the region? Partnership with peer academic and research institutions as well as industry is one of the college’s strategies for internationalization. We have partnerships with some institutions in the country, the region and beyond. For example, we have collaboration with the network of theological universities and colleges in the region. We also partner with more institutions even if they are not Christian based. We recently held a training in the use of the ultrasound with Samford university, for example.

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Musafiri on what East African Christian College offers