KIST to bridge skills gap in architecture

With a population of 11 million people, Rwanda boasts of only 30 registered architects, a ratio which is still quite low compared to the international standards. This has been attributed to lack of a local school to train architects.In a bid to bridge this gap, government, together with the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, established the Faculty of Architecture where students can be locally trained in this field. According to the head of the Department of Architecture, Soita Wambete, there is a big skills gap in the field of architecture which he said affects the country’s performance in terms of development. Wambete, however, hopes that in the next five years, the number of registered architects will be four times higher than the current. “Our first batch of locally trained architects will graduate late this year, they are 19 students and we believe that if we keep on passing out such a number each year then the gap will steadily reduce,” Wambete said.He said the country spends a lot of money hiring foreign based architects since they largely depend on their services. “If the country is to achieve its vision 2020 where building and construction accounts for 40 percent of the economy there is need to invest more in training of local architects,” Wambete said. He adds that there is need for expertise in this field arguing that decisions done by engineers are not good enough. He further said that there is lack of creative thinking in the country’s architectural design since they just duplicate what they have seen in other countries. Jack Murama, a final student of architecture at Kist, said there is lack of professionalism and creativity in Rwanda’s architectural designs. “When you look at some buildings inside the city you can easily see nonprofessional works on them? There is no consideration of site topography and glasses on some buildings are so much reflective and cause glare when driving toward the city centre,” Murama said.“Also the designs produced nowadays are all common, no uniqueness of design; someone would think all are done by the same architect.” Murama further expressed concern on the increasing use of glasses as construction materials for many buildings in town, saying it may lead to environmental problems in the future. “The draftsmen with no cultural background don’t consider the impact of these glasses after 30, 50 even 100 years from today,” he said.“This is a big problem our society will meet in future, now we are experiencing the problem of asbestos and the solution is to bury them. But in future I think there will be no place to bury all of these glasses being used, and they are not recyclable.” Murama hopes that the knowledge he acquired from Kist will help him address the architectural problems in the country. The president of Rwanda Institute of Architecture, Vianney H.J. Kamiya, said the first graduating class of architects will help bridge the skills gap. “Previously, people would get training from foreign countries and come back or recruit foreign architects; now that we have our own institute locally training them is good news because we did not have any school before. And I believe this will quickly close the gap,” Kamiya said. He added that the institute encourages professional practicing architects to hire the graduates and train them for a period of two years before they can be registered. “Once you graduate you need to train for a period of two years from a recognised institution and later sit an exam to be registered; that is in accordance with the law,” Kamiya said. According to Kamiya, once registered these graduates can only work in the East African countries since they are the only ones with the mutual recognition agreement. He added that the institute is still working on the process of seeking the Commonwealth accreditation which will enable the locally trained architects to work in other countries outside the EAC.

National

KIST to bridge skills gap in architecture