Focus on quality education, not fewer years in school

Editor,I wish to directly respond to the comments attributed to Dr Vincent Biruta, the Minister for Education, in the article, “Govt to slash duration of tertiary education”, published in The New Times issue of November 13.Dear Minister, slashing the duration and equipping the students with more practical skills does not come easily. For me there are two sides of the coin.Many scholars like (Senator) Prof. Chrysologue Karangwa know for sure that the quality of students graduating from current secondary schools is not good enough. In some cases, universities have had to improvise orientation and induction courses and/or a transition year to specially cater for some first year students.To some extent, this was compounded by the introduction of English as the language of instruction and the nine year basic education programme which seeks to increase more access opportunities to more children.I thought the education system in Rwanda was 6.6.4 and later transformed to 9.3.4 all totaling to 16 years. How will slashing the years conform to international standards?Truly, the policy will have some implications on the quality of graduates. There are issues that need to be looked into deeply: the curricula, existing lecturers, learning materials, among other resources.Kimenyi, Kenya***************************I think reducing the Bachelor’s degree period to three years without looking at the total period for the learning cycle doesn’t make much sense.Getting a degree must not just be made easy or cheap but the emphasis must be put on knowledge acquisition.Charles Twesigye, Maseru, Lesotho

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Focus on quality education, not fewer years in school