SOUTHERN PROVINCE

HUYE — A group of young researchers from different institutions in the country this week underwent training in qualitative methods in social sciences.

The training organized by the National University of Rwanda [NUR] through its Centre for Conflicts Management (CCM) geared towards improving the capacity of junior researchers.

The 23 participants who were drawn from several institutions in the country explored different strategies and techniques used while carrying out research in the area of social sciences.

They came from the President’s Office, Umutara Polytechnic, Rwanda Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS), some independent researchers and NUR the host.

The training was conducted by Dr. Peter Houtzager from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Houtzager says that Rwanda is producing a new generation of researchers and academicians. These need to have the current and most innovative research methods in order to do rigorous social science research.

"It is impossible to have good public policy, good government without high quality research and it is impossible to teach university students if you are not producing high quality research,” he said.

According to Houtzager, the workshop served to update the participants’ skills to help them design and conduct research using internationally accepted methods.

"I think they learnt tremendous skills,” he said. He added that a series of such workshops will be extended to other institutions in the country to empower more researchers.

Prof. Anastase Shyaka, the NUR director of CCM said that all local researchers need refresher courses on research methodology since the field keeps changing techniques.

"Research is dynamic and knowledge is not static,” he said. He added that the university’s plan to empower researchers will target both senior researchers who are mainly lecturers, and junior researchers ,most of them graduates.

Prof. Shyaka says research work is critical in helping the country’s development.

"Research is a key in national life,” he said.

"What we are doing is to make sure that our researchers possess the necessary instruments of research.”

Many of the participants said that the training was a chance for them to learn what they didn’t grasp well while they were students in universities.

"There are new techniques that we learnt here that will help us as future researchers,” said Rebecca Asiimwe, who is a part-time Tutorial Assistant at Umutara Polytechnic.

Asiimwe said she was impressed by the technique of having the "control” group and the "treated group” while conducting a social science research.

"I wish we could have as many courses like this as possible,” she said of the workshop.

Another junior researcher, François Mugabe from the RCSS, said that the training had given him skills on how to focus on a research project while preparing it to attract people who provide research funds. The workshop was funded by the British Council.

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