Commanders of the Senior Command and Staff Colleges from around the region are meeting in Musanze District to review and harmonise the curricula of the major regional military colleges.

The meeting, that started yesterday, brought together commandants for colleges from the five partner states of the East African Community (EAC) at Rwanda Defence Forces Command and Staff College, Nyakinama in Musanze.

The envisaged harmonisation of the curriculum is under the EAC defence cooperation, which derives its mandate from article 125 of the Treaty establishing the regional bloc.

It has four areas of operation, namely joint operations joint training, exchange and visits and cooperation and defence technical facilities.

The meeting aimed at discussing ways of harmonising the curricula of the regional senior command and staff colleges across the region.

"The aim is to harness information as well as courses that are conducted in staff colleges within EAC partner states. We plan to review our programmes to ensure that our colleges teach similar content and adopt similar approaches,” Brig. Charles Kang’ethe, the chairperson of the EAC defence college commandants, said.

"Our colleges have a grandoise task of training the future military leadership and, therefore, it is our duty to ensure that since we are moving towards regional integration, what we teach should be the same,” he said.

Recommendations from the meeting will be forwarded to the chiefs of defence staff who will in turn forwarded them to the council of defence ministers.

The ministers will, thereafter discuss and submit the recommendation with the Heads of State, he said.

He said through the college commanders’ platform, they are able to exchange students and resources among other areas of cooperation.