Government announces partial reopening of universities

Rwandan universities and higher education institutions will reopen in mid-October, putting an end to the seven-month closure due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic in early March, Minister for Education Dr Valentine Uwamariya has said.

The minister’s announcement of a gradual reopening follows a cabinet meeting on Friday, 25 September.

“Schools will resume with a gradual reopening in the coming weeks based on levels of education. A detailed reopening schedule and readiness assessment will be conducted and communicated by the ministry of education,” reads the cabinet resolutions in part.

Following the cabinet meeting, Uwamariya said the reopening of educational institutions would start with universities and higher learning institutions and schools would follow.

The minister said the ministry, through the Higher Education Council (HEC), has been working with universities to implement the guidelines jointly set by the ministries of education and health.

“We have been working with universities and higher learning institutions and we will be looking at how they implement those guidelines before reopening,” she said.

Such guidelines include hand-washing and social distancing in classrooms, dining rooms and hostels. Evacuation plans for emergencies also need to be in place.

Institutions also need to demonstrate financial sustainability. Those that applied for blended learning need to show their readiness for it. Blended learning is a combination of online and traditional classroom methods.

The pandemic has taken the lives of 29 people in Rwanda since the pandemic was announced in mid-March, while a total of 4,820 total cases have been recorded along with 3,099 recoveries.

Universities and higher learning institutions have said the reopening is long overdue and would help universities recover from financial crises induced by the closure.

“Universities have been preparing for reopening and all is set for reopening; the decision to reopen university was long overdue” said Dr Callixte Kabera, vice-chancellor of the University of Tourism, Technology and Business Studies and president of the association for private universities. “Universities have put in place all required measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

Kabera said some universities have suspended staff and other employees due to failure to pay them during the closure while a few others struggled to pay half of their salaries.

“Reopening of universities means lives are being restored, many staff members and administrative staff have been affected due to the closure. We hope that once classes resume, we will be able to pay our staff members and this will help them to feed their families and cover other expenses,” he said.

There are over 30 universities across the country, the majority being private.

The HEC has carried out an assessment of all institutions to assess their readiness to deliver courses while preventing the spread of the pandemic.

Only those institutions that fulfil all requirements will be allowed to reopen, according to the council.

Elsewhere in East Africa, Tanzanian universities and colleges reopened on 1 June after they were shut down about two months ago, according to The East African newspaper.

In Kenya, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha was quoted by The Standard in August saying that there would be a partial reopening of only those universities that had been vetted and approved for reopening.

In South Sudan, the cabinet ordered that all schools should reopen across the country after nearly six months of closures.