KIGALI - The School of Finance and Banking (SFB) closed down the one-semester old Economics Department.

The department was offering four-year Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Degree programme in Economics.

When the programme was introduced, SFB management said they were responding to the market demand for economists.

Dr. Reid Whitlock, the Rector of SFB said they received communication from the cabinet telling them to close down the department.

"We were told that it is a national policy that economists in Rwanda should be trained at the National University of Rwanda and nowhere else and us to train accountants.” said Whitlock.

The department has about 40 students. These were already one semester into the programme.

Whitlock told that The New Times the students were advised to switch to the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) since they had barely gone far in economics courses.

This means that the former economics students have to take some more BBA courses to be at the same level with their colleagues before they can proceed.

"We asked them to choose between taking the backlog courses concurrently with other BBA subjects and taking them at a later date. They agreed to do them in 2012 during holidays,” he said.

"The changes affected me greatly since I have to take other courses to get to the same level with our colleagues pursuing BBA,” a student who preferred anonymity said.

"We were not given any other alternative and yet we joined economics because it is what we wanted to study.”

SFB specialises on Business Management with specialisation in Accounting, Finance, Human Resource Management and Marketing.

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