University of Rwanda has its work cut out

Editor,Refer to Lonzen Rangira’s article, “University of Rwanda’s enormous expectations” (The New Times, December 16). Not a word in this article about the huge gender disparity in public universities in Rwanda, the lack of women in decision-making positions, and the gender imbalance between enrolments in the sciences and the social sciences. Targets must be set and a more rigorous approach to skilling female academics and supporting female students are both necessary. Mr Rangira rightly points to the paucity of research and writing in Rwanda. An interesting article by Professor Hilary Yerbury on Revaluing Women’s Knowledge states that Rwanda is one of several countries that produced fewer than 20 scholarly articles published in journals covered by Web of Science in 2008. Rwanda also appears to have a relatively low level of collaboration with scholars in other countries, fewer than the five papers per year required for inclusion in the analysis of international collaborations. This picture was no less bleak in the Unesco Science Report of 2010, where it is also reported that no patents have been granted to Rwandan inventors by the US Patents Office in the period 2005-2009. As such, senior managers at the University of Rwanda have a huge task ahead of them. Shirley Randell, Australia*****************Officials should also remember to prepare pre-university schools through ensuring relevant curricula, competent pupil/students, and good schools infrastructure. There is also a need to inculcate positive culture among parents and pupils/students towards attaining competitive quality education.Furthermore, teachers’ welfare should be improved.Robert, Arusha Tanzania*****************The main challenge facing our tertiary education is not “many universities”. The real problems are bureaucracy, welfare, lack of qualified lecturers, lack of school materials, large number of students, lack of infrastructure, and so on... If the University of Rwanda doesn’t tackle these problems, we will still suffer from the same ills that dogged the old system.Clegg, Kigali

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University of Rwanda has its work cut out