Senators task govt on improving higher education standards

Senators have asked the Government to move swiftly and assess the country’s higher education sector to address issues affecting it such as poor infrastructure, inadequate resources for students’ living and class practices as well as poor funding for academic research. The legislators’ call is contained in about 20 recommendations that the Senate endorsed Wednesday after its Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions submitted a damning report on higher education. Touring both private and public universities from October to December last year, the committee members noted that the higher education sector has improved over the last 22 years but still suffers heavily from poor funding and shallow monitoring for quality assurance. Among the recommendations made include the increment of students’ living allowance for those studying on government loans. The students currently receive a paltry Rwf25,000 per month to meet their living costs and buy didactic materials. Lecturers in both public and private universities also need better support to carry out research, according to the lawmakers. The higher education sector currently boasts of 35 general higher learning institutions, including two public bodies (University of Rwanda and the Institute of Legal Practice and Development) while the other 33 are private. The country has 13 colleges offering higher education in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) area; including seven public technical colleges and six that are private. The sector has been training more students as a result of increasing number of colleges, a positive move in line with the government policy to build a knowledge-based economy, but the legislators said laboratories and proper industrial attachment for students remains a challenge to quality education. They also see the support to meaningful research as crucial for the sector’s development. The lawmakers, thus, asked the Government to set up a staff development policy for lecturers, fast-track implementation of a Presidential Order that gives teachers, researchers, and staff in public universities a special statute instead of following the one for all public servants. They also called for initiation of a research policy and research fund in the country. “There is a lot that has been achieved but there are also weaknesses that remain in different areas,” said Senator Gallican Niyongana, the chairperson of the senatorial Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions. The legislators urged the national Higher Education Council (HEC) to increase monitoring of the country’s colleges to ensure that they meet the required standards, including proper infrastructure for students’ living and class practices as well as the quality of lecturers and their research works. The lawmakers also asked the government to solve the issue of bureaucracy at the University of Rwanda, saying the merger of different colleges under one body in 2013 has resulted into slow delivery of services at the university’s colleges and campuses because they depend so much on the university’s central leadership to make and execute decisions. The legislators gave the Government six-months to conduct its own assessment of the higher education sector and bring recommendations and forward-looking measures to the Senate for further discussions. “The government is requested to submit within six months a report of what was achieved in polishing the performance of institutions of higher learning in line with the senators’ recommendations given in their report so that the Senate can then discuss the matters with a government representative,” reads the senators’ concluding recommendation. Senate president Bernard Makuza told reporters that the recommendations will be submitted to the Prime Minister and the Senate will follow up on their implementation. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Senators task govt on improving higher education standards