Lwakabamba defends decision to suspend private students intake

SOUTHERN PROVINCE HUYE — The Rector of the National University of Rwanda (NUR) Professor Silas Lwakabamba has said that the Senate decision to suspend private student intake was largely a result of lack of infrastructure and shortage academic staff. Speaking to The New Times yesterday, Prof. Lwakabamba said that the 44- year old institution now with a student population of over 10,000 has continued to use infrastructure that was meant for only 2,000 students and staff. “There has not been any major expansion of physical infrastructure at the main campus despite the increasing number of students and staff. This has put a lot of strain on the already overstretched facilities,” he said. According to Lwakabamba, the academic staff have also been overwhelmed by the big number of students necessitating them to teach for long hours including weekends. “The student –teacher ratio is very high. Under international standards the teacher-student ratio stands at 1-25 at most depending on the area of instruction,” he said adding: “Coupled with this high student ratio, we have a short fall of at least 150 teaching staff.” The University has 475 academic staff, of which 100 are PhD holders. 200 of them hold first degrees while over 120 are pursuing PhD programmes in different universities abroad. “We do not have enough local staff and depend on expatriate staff which requires a big budget,” said Lwakabamba. The university employs over 50 expatriate staff. The situation has not been helped either by the increasing enrolment of government sponsored students. According to the Rector, the university admitted nearly 4,000 students and is set to receive 2,600 students in the next academic year. “We had a double intake this year mainly because of the scrapping of the languages course. Next year, we will receive over 50 percent of all government sponsored students joining universities and other institutions of higher learning on top of students sponsored by the Fund for Genocide Survivors (GARG) and other special groups like the army and police,” he added. To address the infrastructure crisis, the university will require additional 45,000 square meters of land for the construction of lecture blocks and laboratories. This does not include student hostels and libraries, according to Lwakabamba. “We are sourcing for more space from within. We are also in consultations with the district authorities and religious organisations on the possibility of using their facilities,” he said. The university is also working with development partners to improve the facilities at the main campus. With assistance from the Korean Government, an ICT block is going to be built at the main campus. More Science laboratories are being built with Belgian support. The university has also set up a five-year strategic plan that will guide the development of the biggest and oldest institution of learning in the country. Ends