Two universities based in Musanze District offering technical and vocational training have committed to jointly work to provide quality education in line with the country’s labour demands.

The Musanze Polytechnic (public) and Muhabura Integrated Polytechnic College (private) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) last week.

The MoU aims at enabling both institutions to share didactic and human resources in part to fill existing gaps in either institution, according to officials.

Emile Abayisenga, the Musanze Polytechnic acting principal, said the agreement comes as a response to material and human resource challenges in both institutions.

He said while in some cases two different institutions offering same products could tend to be selfish, it is better to work together to maximise chances of sharing necessary tools.

"The MoU is crucial and would help us complement other, from now we can share lecturers. We can share the resources we have that they don’t have and vice versa. We can do joint ventures in applied research and can generate income together,” said Abayisenga.

While Musanze polytechnic has various quality materials and workshops, Abayisenga admitted that the institution would benefit from Muhabura polytechnics wide ground where agriculture could be practised.

Both institutions offer Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

"I am happy that we signed the MoU, this is a good move. It will help us improve the quality of teaching. We can now start sharing tools and put them to good use,” said Vital Manirakiza, the Muhabura Integrated polytechnic College principal.

"We are both new institutions but we cannot wait … rather we have to start early on, with shared resources we can grow together,” he added.

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