KIGALI - The School of Finance and Banking (SFB) has dropped the number of private students’ intake for 2009 to match the schools current infrastructure, at the opening of the academic year today.

According to sources, of over 1000 students who had applied for private sponsorship, only 400 students have been admitted.

They say the decision was reached at a meeting of the university council late last year, after members concurred that the available infrastructure was overstretched.

The university, the source said, lacks enough infrastructures to accommodate the rising number of students because originally it was ‘meant for a secondary school.’

In an interview with The New Times last week, the vice Rector in charge of Academics, Prof. Erasmus Kaijage, admitted that their infrastructure is overstretched.

He however, allayed fears that many students would be left out, saying they would try to admit as many students as they can.

"Yes our capacity is limited given the infrastructure challenges. We had a lot of applicants but we don’t want to leave out people who qualified,” he said, adding that they were in negotiations with the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) for premises and some students could study from outside the SFB campus that is on Mburabuturo Hill in Gikondo.

He explained that this was in line with the government’s policy of encouraging sharing of the available facilities among institutions of higher learning, including facilities like libraries.

The development in SFB follows similar reports from the National University of Rwanda (NUR) which late last year announced the temporary admission of privately sponsored students citing infrastructural challenges.

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