Dear editor,

I am very happy to have this opportunity to express my views on the issues concerning the embattled university. I have been a student of UNILAK since 2005 and I am now in the final year.

Reading the paper about the discussion the minister of education had with the senate, on one side I felt happy but on the other side annoyed.

I was happy that the minister acknowledged the flaws on the part of the ministry; where she said that there were omissions in the way the problem of UNILAK was handled.

She said that there was lack of cooperation between the ministry and the UNILAK management and that her predecessors apologized for that.

At this point there is a problem, if there were flaws between two parties why only one party has to apologize and not the other?

Is not minister trying to include the university management so that the ministry should not be fully accountable for the flaws ‘wants to share responsibilities’?

Is apologizing enough? Actually I am wondering to whom these former mineduc bosses apologize to what they did! I think they should be apologizing to these affected students and in fact not even to the university management.

My personal opinion is that these kinds of mistakes which seem to be intentional ‘I say intentional because when you follow the moves just after the cabinet reshuffle….!’ Should it always be handled in judicial proceedings?

I started saying that I was happy on one side and annoyed on the other, where I got annoyed is when the minister argues that the students should have to re-sit for exams; I am requesting the minister not to fall in her predecessor’s trap, she acknowledges that the university fulfills the requirements; yet she wants to set exams in order to revive the students confidence in the public.

She should remember that it is the same ministry that is responsible for the tarnishing the same university and its students, why not the same ministries use same channels (media) to revive their confidence and reputation?

The minister says that conferring these students might be just a political solution and not technical one; unless the minister hid some realities otherwise by following her arguments there is no technical solution required.

We were concerned about this case and we always asked our management team and they could tell us that they have done all the necessary requirements the remaining thing is on the part of the ministry to decide, actually we used to ask the ministry not to allow the institution to admit more students but was never effected, and there remained threats of likely closure of the university which I think would be a scandal.

Minister, thank you for your approach, but still not enough try to consult the entire stakeholder in the problem and hope you will succeed in your mission.

Kigali