The greater autonomy that University of Rwanda (UR) seeks to gain through a bill awaiting approval by Parliament is critical for it to be able to fast-track the recruitment of competent staff and improve its performance, a senior UR official has said.

UR’s Acting Vice Chancellor Associate Prof Didas Kayihura Muganga made the observation on March 28 while speaking to journalists about the need for such autonomy and the rationale behind it. It was at the end of UR’s CEOs and heads of organisations meeting in Kigali, under the theme "enhancing stakeholders’ engagement towards the university we want.”

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The lower chamber of Parliament approved the relevance of the draft law governing UR on March 21. Among other provisions, the bill proposes allowing UR to operate in its full autonomy especially in matters regarding its powers and responsibilities, its Board of Governors, as well as the responsibilities of the Executive Organ.

"The proposed full autonomy will also help to take decision on matters regarding the procurement of materials related to teaching, learning and research by using internal resources (academic and research staff, and their business companies respectively as part of teaching and learning),” an explanatory note of the bill reads in part.

This will be done, among others, by establishing specific rules regulating UR procurement, it indicated.

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Kayihura said that currently, hiring a lecturer requires that the university goes through the general recruitment process of public personnel – such as through the online recruitment (e-recruitment) system managed by the Ministry of Public Service and Labour. This practice, he said, was not effective and efficient for a university that is looking for competent staff who are also sought after by other universities globally, and could, sometimes, due to delays, lead to hiring staff that are not responding to the university’s needs to grow.

If the autonomy is achieved, he said, the university management will be able to identify scholars with the skills that match its development needs and recruit them in a timely manner.

He indicated that in academia, universities place greater importance on the needed knowledge or skills than on nationality in their recruitment.

"I can recruit an Australian now, a Chinese tomorrow, and an American the next day because what I want is knowledge, not nationality. That’s how universities are built,” he said, indicating that by going the traditional way, recruitment is marred by bureaucracy and is not effective in getting the desired staff.

"That is the freedom we need in terms of human resource management, procurement, and research,” he said.

Giving an example of how the autonomy is important, he cited research where "you can start your research thinking that you will need, say, up to four consumables [materials needed for practice], but research shows that you need eight. Based on the current procurement legislation, you are not allowed to procure the other four.”

He noted that, normally, it is research that determines what you need.

For him, the general procurement procedures are not appropriate in terms of research and could block it.

Much as the university should be held accountable for resource use and management – including value for money – in line with its mandate, Kayihura said that, this should be contextualised in terms of research.

"We want to be held accountable for what we have done, but in a way that the one holding us to account does not base it on a context that is not appropriate to the university as a research centre,” he said.

Remunerating researchers based on performance, budget self-sufficiency

Kayihura pointed out that the autonomy also concerns the remunerations of staff, pointing out that the university will reach a period when a university researcher is paid based on their performance. For instance, he said, if one researcher did their best and came up with a research project worth Rwf1 billion, and another brought a project worth Rwf500,000, the greater efforts of the former should be recognised as a motivation.

This could encourage staff to be competitive so as to realise research projects that bring them major profits, he pointed out.

According to data from the university, the government contributes 57 per cent of UR’s budget, while the remaining is mobilised from other sources including the university capacity through research.

"Our target is that the more than 50 per cent government contribution to our budget goes down, and then, we generate more internally. As such, we reduce dependency on the government and rely on our capacity,” he said.