The Ministry of Education is restructuring its institutions in changes that will see scholarship disbursements for both local and international students move from Rwanda Education Board (REB) to Higher Education Council (HEC), the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Samuel Mulindwa, has said.

Appearing before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), last week, PS Mulindwa said the process would significantly contribute to the reduction of some issues that had been highlighted in the 2015/16 Auditor-General’s report.

"The money that was meant for scholarships for students in the country and abroad will begin being disbursed through HEC instead of REB,” he said.

"HEC will determine the number of students that will be sponsored in and out of the country and it will also do the transfers to Rwanda Development Bank and abroad. It will also follow up on the students and provide detailed reports on performances of these students and their general progress,” the PS added.

According to Mulindwa, all this information will be in-built within an Information Management System that will be based at BRD but operated by both institutions to provide details about each student and later the bursary recovery process.

Mulindwa also provided an insight on the Government’s plan to equip University of Rwanda with tools to fix its financial issues.

He also addressed the issue of the funding of university, saying a funding model was being improved to continue supporting the institution but at the same time find ways how it can help support its own budget.

"In our new funding model, UR has an amount of money that they are required to make as a target. We have for instance asked them that they cannot generate less than Rwf10 billion. We are going to fund but the condition is that the higher the funding the more the money they should generate per year. They can find ways to make money through research, consultancy and tuition,” he said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw