• Wants $15m for immediate upgrade

The National University of Rwanda (NUR) has brought to the attention of different stakeholders the need to help it improve capacities with the most urgent requirements amounting to US$ 15 million.

This was announced yesterday by the university Rector, Prof. Silas Lwakabamba, during a high level meeting with stakeholders at Serena Hotel in Kigali.

The meeting aimed at bringing attention to stakeholders the strategic plan of NUR – the country’s biggest institution of higher learning – a five-year plan that is will cost $110m
According to Lwakabamba, the university has a critical need to build capacities of its staff, infrastructure, and managerial institutions.

"We are able to accommodate only a quarter of our students also in bad conditions,” NUR’s Vice Rector for academic affairs, Martin O’Hara, told a room fully packed with the university’s major partners.

He highlighted major challenges that the university is going through including difficulties in retaining staff due to low motivation, lack of infrastructure to accommodate students and host their laboratories, and a critical need to empower its human resources.

Lwakabamba said that NUR needs at least $15m in order to implement its current priority projects that are mainly about building capacities of its staff and infrastructure to host laboratories, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centres, and classrooms.

"It is indeed a great honour to see stakeholders around here. We want to highlight where more support is needed,” said Dr. Theogene Rutagwenda, Chairman of the university’s Board of Directors.

Most of the plans in the five-year strategic plan will be executed step by step, but the sponsors will have to look at them and decide where to intervene, the university administration said.

Some of the partners proposed that more strategies are needed for the country’s premier university to sustain its programmes, including developing research capacities and creating linkages with the private sector.

"The private sector can fund some of your programmes,” Dr. Okwach Abagi, a Senior Policy Advisor to President Paul Kagame, told the university’s team.

The sponsors, who included representatives of different top institutions in the country, embassies, UN agencies and the private sector, will today tour the university’s 9,000-student campus in Butare, Southern Province.

Ends