The Minister of Education, Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, has urged boards of directors at all institutions of higher learning in the country to play an active role in improving the quality of education.

The minister made the call yesterday while meeting heads of boards of both public and private universities.

Habumuremyi said that the improvement of the quality of education in the country would depend on how collaborative all the levels in the learning institutions are.

"We need to improve the quality of our education system. This will help us locally and also favour us at the international arena, but your active role is needed,” the Minister said.

He explained that boards can ensure quality of education by regularly following up the activities of their respective institutions.

"You should be able to regularly acquaint yourselves with issues like teaching, examining, promotion of the students as well as their welfare,” he said adding that all the above aspects play a big role in ensuring quality.

The issue of poor quality of graduates has persistently been brought up. Employers complain that graduates are not ready for the job market when they leave university.

Speaking to The New Times, the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Legal Practice and Development (ILPD) Prof. Alphonse Ngagi, said that boards have a crucial role to play.

He however, noted that issues of quality in the education system cannot be solved at the university level.

"It is true that there a problem of poor quality among graduates, but I don’t think the problem is because universities cannot teach.

The problem is that universities inherit students with background problems and can do nothing much about it,” said Ngagi.

He advised that the campaign to solve the quality issue should start at the foundation level.

Patrick Mugisha, a student at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology offered a different view.

"There is a problem of generalisation. I don’t believe that all the graduates complete school when they are of poor quality,” he said.

"Just like you cannot have a class of only smart students, that is what happens when they get on the job market.”

Habumuremyi says that the meeting is the beginning of a series of meetings of various stakeholders in institutions of higher learning in a bid to correct the wrongs and uphold development of the education system.

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