New HEC boss speaks out on suspended universities

In March, the Ministry of Education suspended operations of four universities and some courses in six other institutions over irregularities including inadequate staff and teaching facilities, leaving thousands of students stranded. The suspension followed an audit carried out in October last year by international external auditors in all higher learning institutions, both public and private. The affected universities were given six months to comply or be permanently closed. The Education Times ’Jean d’Amour Mbonyinshuti caught up with Dr Emmanuel Muvunyi, the newly appointed Executive Director of the Higher Education Council (HEC) and he gave an insight into the matter and what is being done to streamline higher education. Below are excerpts: You recently had a closed door meeting with the leadership from the affected universities, what was the agenda and the focus of the meeting? We met last week on Friday with the leadership of the affected institutions and representatives of professional bodies in Rwanda. The professional bodies represented at the meeting were the Rwanda Medical and Dental Council, National Council for Nurses and Midwives, the Rwanda Allied Health Professional Council, and Rwanda Institute of Engineers, among others. The purpose of the meeting was to agree on how we are going to assess the implementation of the recommendations that came from the external audit in the institutions affected by the suspension. We want to make sure that institutions are all contributing to the advancement of professions in Rwanda; we wanted to clear the previous misconception that some institutions were unfairly treated. We also discussed the tools and the process that we are going to follow. We have provided guidelines in line with implementing audit recommendations; we will be informed on the implementation and immediately plan for a visit. So once an institution is found to have fulfilled all that is required, we will also agree on the process of formally informing them that they have been granted permission to reopen. The tool is elaborate in that even the institutions will be able to make self-assessment, for example, if a certain institution was closed because of lack of enough laboratories or enough professors, they will be able to implement what the tool provides for in line with this requirement. The spirit is that we want to closely work with them to be able to get a solution to the problems.We also discussed the issue of students affected, we informed universities that it is our hope that these institutions are now ready and have fulfilled the requirements to get approval to re-open. The students will be immediately informed and will be able to go back and resume studies. However, we informed them that in the unlikely event that this is not possible, we shall help the students to find alternatives in other institutions which are operating; this was made very clear. The third thing that was made very clear is that the standards and norms that the audit was based on are not negotiable and will not be compromised. So when did the follow up assessment start? We are not going to wait for all the affected institutions to submit feedback in order to assess them. We gave them a tool that covers most aspects of the institutions but also, the specific areas that they were asked to improve. As soon as they have this, we will arrange within seven days to visit them, so it will be in phases depending on those institutions that will have submitted their responses. And the tool you said was availed to institutions to follow up on the requirements, what is it exactly? These are international standards used to gauge the performance of higher institutions, for example, you talk about the programmes, the numbers of students, laboratories, computers, libraries, and all these aspects of a university.This too, has been developed based on the international standards and these are the ones that were used in the initial external audit to assess these institutions. It is a generic tool that has been benchmarked by other countries and has the components that make up the university. These institutions have been given the copies of the HEC standards and also professional bodies so that it is easy to do self-assessment even before we audit them. Some of Gitwe University students read the letter given by the administration to take home following the Ministry’s decision to suspend three programmes. HEC has advised the students from the affected universities to enrol in other institutions in the event that some do not re-open soon. How are you handling this situation? The Higher Education Council did not tell students to register in other universities should the ones they were at not re-open soon. We just want the students who were studying at the affected universities to be given other opportunities, so there are two options. One option, and we are all optimistic about it, is that their institutions will re-open. Students can then go back and continue with their studies and I think that is what we all want. But in the unlikely event that the particular institution is not approved to re-open, students should have an option. So what we have done is help them, we will recommend them to other institutions, which we know are accredited and are allowed to operate and they seek admission for themselves. Are there some who have enrolled in other universities already? Not as yet because the academic year starts in September for most universities, especially, University of Rwanda where apparently most of them want to go.We are not aware of any, maybe some have been offered places in some universities, but it is open and we are not limiting any students to go to a particular university. For students and parents, the suspension is a big loss in terms of time and their resources. What are you planning to make sure that this never happens again? The fact that these universities were closed should be seen as a positive thing because we do not want them to pay for substandard education.The message across is that you have been getting substandard services and we closed these institutions because we want quality education, worth the value of money you are paying. The students should see this as a good thing.Regardless of the process in place, we are monitoring universities to see whether they are in sync with the requirements to a level that the government can ascertain if it is fit for students to go back or recommend other universities that are accredited. Now, to ensure that universities will not be closed in future as was the case, we are building the capacity of HEC to be able to make regular follow ups. Let’s assume that a university or a programme is being accepted, we will expect that below a certain point, an institution will not be allowed to enrol students.When a new institution is being set up, it doesn’t start well-developed, but it should have most requirements. We shall build a very strong and rigorous follow-up system; we are also planning to have closer collaboration with heads of institutions so that we keep reminding them of the standards they have to follow. What has been happening is that when an institution is set up, there is a minimum standard, for example, the number of students per lecturer. At the beginning, they have the required number, but as time passes, they admit more students and don’t recruit a corresponding number of staff. We will follow-up, so that should the number of the students increase without employing more staff, the institution will be reminded of the standards. The Ministry of Education recently suspended operations of four universities and some courses in six other institutions. When do you think the final decision will be made for institutions to be re-opened? It will depend, we will visit the institutions and once we find that they have fulfilled the requirements a hundred percent, I think they will get approval to re-open even the very next day. If we get feedback that they have done what is required, we will visit them, and if they claim to have done 100 per cent and we realise they only did 30 or 40, we will call them and discuss and see how to implement the rest over a course of six months. This is the time they’ve been accorded. If they have not attained 100 per cent in six months they will face permanent closure. Anything below 100 per cent will call for a discussion. For example, do they need to recruit lecturers or do they need to equip their laboratories, we want to see whether they are going to procure the required computers and required laboratory equipment and if they have put a purchase order, because some are imported, we need to speak to them and see their plans.We are building into this process through dialogue. editorial@newtimes.co.rw