NUR, FARG disagree over admissions

Officials at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) have declined to admit some students sponsored by the Fund for Genocide Survivors (FARG) citing that they do not meet the institution’s admission criteria. In an interview with The New Times, FARG’s Communications officer Jean de dieu Udahemuka said, scholarships are awarded to student survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi who did not attain government scholarship. “We look at our budget as one of our criteria when giving the sponsorship because we need to know the number of students we can sponsor”, he said. “However some of our students are denied admission in universities like NUR and the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) based on the fact that our criteria differ,” Udahemuka added. Some of the students have since been admitted to other institutions of learning like Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), Kigali Independent University (ULK) and other private institutions of learning. “A student cannot be sponsored and fail to get where to be placed”, he emphasized The NUR Rector Prof. Silas Lwakabamba noted that the university follows its own criteria when receiving the sponsored students and this is determined by the Senate. “We set a minimum mark for every course of study and if a student does not have the required mark set he does not qualify to be admitted despite acquiring sponsorship. Citing the minimum mark for medicine which is 6, Lwakabamba said that students below this mark cannot be admitted. The NUR Rector addedthat FARG appointed 229 students for sponsorship in NUR but only 154 were eligible to pursue their studies at the university. Ends