NYAMASHEKE - Nyamasheke District in the Western Province will next year get a university.

The university will be an addition to the 29 higher institutions of learning in the country.

The institution, which comes through the concerted efforts of residents under the umbrella of the Liberal Methodist Church, will begin with a faculty of medicine.

The campus will be housed in buildings belonging to Kibogora Hospital in the area, while other structures belong to the Methodist Church.

According to Prof. Geoffrey Rugege, the Director of the High Education Council (HEC), the current government’s decision to liberalise the education sector has harvested a lot in a space of 17 years.

"We now have 28,000 graduates and current students who should graduate in the next four years are about 64,000,” says Rugege.

Speaking to The New Times, the Nyamasheke District Mayor Jean Baptiste Habyarimana, said that the project will cost Rwf 300 million which will mainly be used to renovate the already available buildings as well as acquiring teaching materials.

Habyarimana said that the idea of a university was mooted to bring to end the long journeys students in the area make to obtain higher education.

"The university will charge average tuition to enable students from the districts of Rusizi, Karongi, Nyamagabe and Nyamasheke acquire university education without having to travel all the way to Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi,” he said.

"It is high time the loads of money, Rwandan students spend on studying in other countries, came to Rwanda.”

The university will begin with 500 students and will use Kibogora hospital as the teaching hospital. It will gradually add the faculties of Rural Development, Tourism and Education faculties in its academic portfolio.

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