Keeping up with its own growth: NUR produces quality despite crowded facilities

The picturesque entrance to Butare’s National University of Rwanda resembles an old colonial governor’s mansion. At the main gate, a lone private night watchman stares impassively in the middle of the road; he will be replaced in the morning by an even more bored looking policeman. The long walk to the administration block however, speaks of university life. Along the way, very long green eucalyptus trees line both sides of the road from the main entrance to the main administration block. As if it’s a rule, all pathways inside NUR main campus are covered under the canopy of one tree or another; under these trees are old wooden benches which are used by students for several purposes. On some benches are students in group discussions, Jane Mutesi is giving her views on the government of Rwanda’s National Unity and Reconciliation commission as I walk past one such group. On another bench a student is puffing away on a cigarette while another group is practicing as some sort of choir, it’s early in the morning. The walk from the main entrance is telling of Rwanda today. There is no gate at the entrance as if to create the impression, everybody is welcome at Rwanda’s most prestigious academic institution. The security guard is seated in a makeshift detach. It is very early Wednesday morning, and Butare town is soon to be closed for Gacaca sessions. There’s a rush everywhere to beat the early Gacaca deadline. As they rush, young female students are carrying bags on their shoulders, talking on their mobile phones while the male students are talking about the European Champion’s league match the previous night. On one side of the road is a genocide memorial site for university residents that were killed in the 1994 Genocide, there are some fresh wreaths inside the site. Tight squeeze. NUR is a busy institution, the campus is slowly becoming a town it in itself. The dean of students Gerard Mudaheranwa says the population of the university has blown up in recent years: “We now have a university student population of 8,000, but the entire population of NUR could be somewhere near 10,000.” The increased population has attracted a variety of businesses and lifestyles and rejuvenated the entire Southern Province; “it is easy to get to Butare by public means even as late as 7.30,” says Frank Mugisha a senior executive working in Kigali and pursuing a masters’ program in Economics at NUR. There are many post graduate students at the university today, on 28th March NUR had its maiden awards for PhDs, faculty of Medicine was the first to teach the PhDS. The university itself has 104 teaching staff currently pursuing PhD programmes abroad. “The introduction of various post graduate courses at the university coupled with increasing admissions have made NUR become over populated, stretching academic and other facilities,” Mudaheranwa adds. The increased population at the university has definitely brought many benefits as Innocent Buyinza a bus driver with Volcano transport services, one of several public transport managers on the route between Butare and Kigali says. However, the serene gardens of NUR hide many challenging situations to the administrators. “NUR was built for only 2,100, now the student population stands at 8,000. Some of our facilities have been stretched to the limit. For example in some cases we have two students sharing one single small bed,” says Mudaheranwa. Shortage of accommodation is not the only problem the institution faces. The library is affected the most. “Our students cannot fit into this small structure, we work longer hours so that we cater for many more students,” Charles Kalinganire the director of the library says. The university Rector Professor Silas Lwakabamba is more direct; “we don’t have a conference room or a cafeteria, we take all our meetings to hotels. When the staff members, many of whom reside in Kigali come to the university to teach, they have nowhere to prepare their lectures from. They instead prepare from hotels, where they are labeled drunkards.” Still blossoming All these challenges have not stopped NUR from being the biggest producer of skilled labour to the economy. “We have been at the forefront of supporting government’s knowledge based economy drive,” Lwakabamba says. And NUR is very aware of the competition for jobs now that Rwanda is in the East African Community. “We are playing a full part in education transformation in Rwanda. Last year, the government adopted the National Qualification Framework. This policy will ensure that we produce competitive labour not just for Rwanda and the EAC but for global employment opportunities,” Professor Martin O’hara Vice in charge of academics says. The National Qualification Framework was adopted from the international academic standards in terms of quality and quantity of tertiary institution graduates that was adopted in Bologna. O’hara adds that the National Higher Education Council is one of the recommendations of the Bologna framework. With an average roll out of 2,500 each year, NUR has been very in increasing the number and quality of skilled labour in the country. “We have been the biggest institution to educate leaders in the country. We have developed partnerships with many institutions in the world to ensure the quality of graduates,” Lwakabamba says. According to the 2003 National Population survey, the ratio of university graduates to the total population of Rwanda was only 0.5 per cent. NUR has doubled its efforts since that shocking discovery. “We have produced over 8,116 [graduates] since 1995, and we are still determined to remain the leading institution in Rwanda.” Change ahead. The university has embarked on a massive ambitious reform program. Lwakabamba explains that 28 projects were launched at the beginning of the year. “We have Catholic sisters constructing a 5,000 (what??) hostel that will solve most accommodation problems.” The library is to benefit from a KOICA grant (Korean International Development Agency grant of 4 US Dollars (???) for a new building to house ICT services, telecommunication and electronic departments. “This will create more space in the library,” Lwakabamba adds. Talks continue with the government and with donors for other university development projects. Lwakabamba explains that the university has undertaken reforms that mean when students come to the end of their time at university, they are not left with luxury of completing their assignments at their own pace as has been the case. “We want to avoid situation where students that were supposed to graduate in 2001 are just getting their certificates today. When a student walks out of the gate, they should have finished all academic work.” The university also has handled its fair share of Genocide ideology cases, these ideologies a December 2007 parliamentary commission issued an alarming report about the prevalence of hate speech in Rwandan schools. The commission concluded that genocide ideology had increased in schools to an extent that there is ground to fear another genocide in the coming years. The senior administration at NUR says there are no such cases in the institution which has been labeled as the fermenting ground for the genocidaire regime before 1994; ‘in the past we had cases where students wrote abusive massages in the toilets, that has since been stopped. Lwakabamba adds that these ideology issues manifest themselves during student guild election. “ However they take the form of Francophones against Anglophones. But only because here’s a lot of competition for guild positions, they attract many benefits. We are discussing removing these benefits too.” He says the love of money has already infected guild politicians, “the fights we have are only between guild politicians, usually between incoming and out going governments.” Ends