University of Rwanda’s enormous expectations

Higher education in Rwanda has been undergoing numerous changes in the areas of policy, strategy and administration over the past decade and a half. The most recent refashioning has seen seven universities merge and come under one umbrella, the University of Rwanda (UR). The emergence of the University of Rwanda represents a fundamental change in the management of higher education in the country. It has also raised enormous expectations. According to Professor James McWha, its Vice Chancellor, the UR will “focus on ensuring that our students get quality education.” It will produce competitive graduates who “are as good, if not better, than the students elsewhere in the world.” This is both a tall order and a cause for excitement among an expectant public. All Rwandans of good will must hope that these lofty aspirations will come to fruition.The new team in charge is promising radical change, starting with making UR a research university which, according to Professor Nelson Ijumba, the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academics, “will automatically” place it “in high position in world rankings.” To become a research university, UR intends to build research capacity by, among other things, increasing the number of staff with PhDs and improving the supervision capacity of those who already have them. However, there are questions about how fast these ambitions can be achieved. The good news, though, is that the government is fully invested in the project. Even then, patience will be necessary, as most of the proposed changes will require time to take root. It is true that Rwanda’s universities rate quite poorly in international rankings. The country’s best university stands at 77th in Africa, and is the only one in the top 100. It is ranked 4470th in the world, according to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities. KIST, which is second in Rwanda, stands at 171st on the continent. Globally it plummets to 8559th, while KIE which is third in the country, comes in at 340th and 13627th respectively. While these rather dismal ratings do not evoke pride, the new team must resist the temptation to make improving rankings a key focus in the short term, as consistent reform in itself should take care of that in due course. Focusing on rankings from the word go amounts to placing the cart before the horse. As for the focus on research, there are hard realities to contend with on the ground, which explain why the quality of the education currently provided is poor and, consequently, why the university is churning out graduates who employers claim do not meet their needs or expectations. The lamentably limited research output has to do with several factors. First, there are very few experienced academics. And the few we have are not enough to satisfy demand from the ever-increasing number of universities. The competition for qualified staff can only increase as more institutions of higher learning set up shop. Then there is the issue of poor pay for university staff. While most people who go into teaching are not motivated by money, the tendency for salaries in academic institutions to be low compounds the problem of skills shortage. Few are able to survive and live in the comfort they aspire to on the pay of a full-time academic. The combination of high demand for skilled teachers and researchers on the one hand and low pay on the other, has given rise to a mercenary culture that has turned professors into academic hit-men.They can be found roaming the city – as businessmen would – hopping from this university to another to ‘deliver a lecture.’ This has had a negative effect on the quality of education delivered. Undergraduate education thrives on supervision, as intimated by Prof. Ijumba. Enhanced supervision means increased contact hours between teachers and their students. To achieve this, the mercenary instinct would have to be tamed or exorcised. Similarly, a culture of mentorship will have to be revived. Academics would have to avail themselves to students, guiding them on their path to intellectual and personal growth, a role that is implied in the Rwandan concept of Uburezi. It is becoming apparent that a focus on student learning may be incompatible with the desire to create a research university at the onset. A teaching university focuses on student learning; a research university places emphasis on research production, with most of the teaching done by doctoral students as teaching assistants. In the current circumstances, there are no doctoral students. It is unrealistic, therefore, to expect nomadic academics to sit down and conduct good research or even supervise or mentor students. After so many years, it is warranted for people to remain hopeful about the ambitions driving reform in higher education. However, the context begs for UR to proceed with caution and vigilance.

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University of Rwanda’s enormous expectations