Today in every paper across our nation, you read about Kayumba et al, about Rwandans support to Somalia, about the East African Community, yet there seems to be little concern about the dilemma that is happening to our university students.
Last year, Rwanda’s government approved the decision to cancel bursary loans used by government supported students. The Education Minister Dr Charles Murigande also announced that in the 2011 academic year, they will be no more merit scholarships for university students based on excellent secondary school results. SFAR,( Student Financing Agency) which covers students’ accommodation and living expenses, would loan 250,000 Rwandan francs to students, who would then reimburse the money once they find employment but now all that is being taken away.
This has now become a great source of concern for the students who depend on government’s financial support. Many students were planning to request an appointment with the President Paul Kagame to discuss their plight, saying they are worried about their future, some are saying that this was a hasty decision and they believe the government should have considered the impact that this will have on the levels of education, as well as the impact it shall have on the number of students, who claim they will be forced to drop out of university, because without the financial support, they have no support at all.
Minister of Education, Dr Charles Murigande, said that the government will continue to support students financially and the money which was supposed to be used for student loans is simply being reduced not abolished. He says that in future, students will be expected to carry their own weight, and pay for their own university costs. . The student population, believe there will be no students left in university in the future, except for the students who have private funding.
“The education budget has been shortened and the government decided that students, from next year, must accommodate on their own. The money they were given by SFAR must develop newly implemented education policies like Nine Years Basic Education and technical education training, to give a chance to those who did not attend university,” said the minister.
Rwanda now has free primary education up to the third year of secondary school, amounting to nine years of free education. This has made Rwanda’s primary school enrollment the highest in the region.
Rwanda one the few African countries that has considerably contributed to developing higher education, will at the same time help in the development of information, communication, technology, and Internet infrastructure in the country. Yet there is still the expressed concern from students and parents about the latest developments, especially the fears of university costs, and the worries of how students will survive without the Government’s financial support.
While the government expects the students to be able to support their own weight in paying for their university costs, the students are expecting the government to provide jobs so that students can study and make a living at the same time, but they say the only available jobs are those such as, waitressing, working in supermarkets, cleaning houses. They say that none of these jobs are in the least capable of financially helping a student pay for their school fees, their rent, let alone the monthly fee for food. The government must find a solution to this problem, before our nation finds itself with no leaders to govern our nation in the future.
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