Rebuilding a higher education system after a genocide

Starting the process to rebuild Rwanda after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi was a tumultuous and almost impossible endeavour. In a society left in ruins, higher education was one of the worst-hit sectors.

In 2024, as the country, during its 100 days of commemoration, continues to reflect on what has happened in the 30 years since the genocide against the Tutsi, experts recall the unprecedented efforts and determination it took to reopen the Université Nationale du Rwanda, or the National University of Rwanda (NUR).

In 1994, Rwanda’s only higher learning institution betrayed the country and participated in the genocide.

“The elite class, who included many of the then university leaders, lecturers, researchers and students, played a role in the preparation and execution of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi,” admits Dr Raymond Ndikumana, the deputy vice-chancellor for strategic planning and administration at the University of Rwanda, who is in charge of institutional advancement at the university.

Speaking a few weeks ago, as the university community gathered at the former premises of the National University of Rwanda to remember the estimated 400 staff slain in the tragedy that nationally cost the lives of over one million innocent people in 100 days, he said: “We can’t be proud of this as the University of Rwanda family.”

The events of 1994 left the academic sector, in particular universities, paralysed.

Dr Charles Murigande, a seasoned academic and politician, became the second rector of the National University of Rwanda. Later, he became the minister of education as well as the deputy vice-chancellor of institutional advancement at the renamed University of Rwanda.

He remembers all too well the devastation that followed the 1994 Rwandan genocide. “Over a million lives were lost, and the country’s infrastructure, including its education system, was in ruins,” he says.

Yet, in 1995, just a year after the horrific tragedy the university reopened amid numerous challenges and he became rector in 1997.

Resilience and hope

His story, and the story of Rwanda’s higher education system, is one of resilience and hope. Murigande describes the immense challenges faced in those early days.

“The sector was almost destroyed. All academic activities had stopped. There was not a single school in operation,” he said, recalling the effect of the genocide.

Murigande remembers that the country had no money to restart its education system. “We knew that the country would not be rebuilt unless we built our education system,” he says.

According to Murigande, those who were willing to rebuild the country were of the view that Rwanda was not in need of higher education at the time. “There were many who doubted the need to reopen NUR so soon. Even partners were saying that we should focus on primary and secondary and forget about higher education,” he notes.

“Against all odds, the leadership of the country was determined to reopen NUR,” he says.

Staff for the university was one of the first challenges that had to be dealt with.

Many lecturers had been killed or displaced. What the university was left with were a few survivors, older people who were working at the university but were not targeted during the violence – and the repatriated.

“We were facing a lot of challenges … we were going to start with about 35% of the academic core that we had before genocide,” he notes.

Of the 245 academic staff members NUR had before the genocide, only 42 lecturers reported back and another 30-40 repatriated from various countries.

When the Rwanda Patriotic Army, the army wing for the Rwanda Patriotic Front, or FPR, stopped the 1994 genocide and liberated the country, thousands of Rwandans who lived in refugee camps in different, mainly neighbouring, countries, were given the chance to be repatriated.

Other Rwandans had left the country in the 1960s and the years that followed due to political and ethnic tensions that marked the country. The majority of them were of the Tutsi ethnic group.

So the country had an influx of people who repatriated and also had to be reintegrated.

To address the shortage of lecturers, NUR partnered with universities in neighbouring countries, but this brought about difficulties.

“Professors would come [from other countries] to teach for short stints, creating logistical nightmares and disorganised our own staff as they had to let those who were coming from abroad teach first,” he notes.

A melting pot

Another challenge was the influx of students from English-speaking countries.

“We had the obligation to teach them in the language of instruction they were using … We, therefore, had to start a university that taught in both French and English. We had to run two universities in one.”

The student body at NUR, at the time, was socially as complex as the rest of Rwanda and many students were traumatised.

A psychologist, who prefers not to be named, points out that, in addition to the orphans, and the children of those implicated in the genocide, the student family included those who played a role in stopping the genocide and were still in the military.

Managing the university family and restoring peace and harmony required a special effort, says the expert.

At any time, he says, violence and protests could erupt and the university management as well as government officials kept an eye on this and had to ensure the mental health of all the students and staff was taken care of.

This is also how Murigande remembers the historical period at the university.

“You had the genocide orphans who were in great pain and you could see they experienced a kind of depression. Others had parents who had committed the genocide or had played a role in the genocide and were a bit ashamed and a bit fearful – and we also had people [who repatriated] from anglophone and francophone countries. There was a lot of confusion.”

The university leadership, however, was committed to fostering a peaceful environment in which students could live together again and so held ongoing meetings with students. There were many discussions, public talks – and counselling.

Murigande explains the approach: “We received all the students and left justice to the justice department.” Even so, this was a bumpy road.

“It was a melting pot and people had to learn to live together … we drew the line and ensured peaceful coexistence and equal rights to study together, to have the same rights and get scholarships, irrespective of where they were from,” he added.

“[But], I would exaggerate if I said that it was easy to manage. You could sense tension, but at no time did tensions erupt in protest,” he recalls.

One of the strategies was the creation of unity clubs. These could gather regularly to discuss the history and how students could live together, including in student accommodation that did not segregate students.

Students elected leaders among themselves. They could track the mood on the ground and mitigate any incident while the management of the university also kept an eye. There were also public talks for students to be mobilised and to strive for strong bonds among themselves.

A community of healing

A student organisation called the Association des Etudiants et Eleves Rescapes du Genocide (AERG), a genocide survivors’ association, was created in 1996 and played a crucial role in supporting genocide survivors.

“That organisation has played a massively important role. Older children became parents of younger ones and they created families to help each other as they had lost parents and relatives. They helped the survivors get the courage to live and study,” he says.

For Murigande, the AERG association restored hope for thousands of young genocide survivors who enrolled in the aftermath of the tragedy and in the years that followed.

“Had it not existed, I would say half of the survivors would have failed in their studies. So I don’t know if [history] writers will do justice to document and to highlight the important role these organisations have played in helping the survivors get the courage to continue to live and embrace a new life and a good future,” he says.

For former students like Jean Pierre Nkuranga, a genocide survivor who enrolled at NUR and who was among the first intakes, starting his studies was hard.

“In the aftermath of the genocide, the physical and psychological wounds did not guarantee any success.

“I remember a number of my colleagues who dropped out and others who got discouraged and failed to cope with academic life,” he adds.

Today, Nkuranga works at the Rwanda Polytechnic where he serves as the deputy vice-chancellor in charge of administration and finance, something he believes could not have happened had the government not invested in restoring hope.

A new system takes root

The success of NUR in managing the transition paved the way for the expansion of Rwanda’s higher education system. More public universities and higher learning institutions, both public and private, were opened.

In fact, the country’s number of institutions grew from one in 1996 to 10 in the early 2000s. The former National University of Rwanda was merged with six other public higher education institutions to form the current University of Rwanda.

Rwanda’s government also played its part in the growth of higher education. It was not in a position to expand quickly and encouraged the private sector to offer education.

Today, having started from one university, the country’s higher learning education landscape has expanded to about 30 universities, mainly private ones.

The country has also attracted more investors in higher learning education and has even accredited international universities to work in Rwanda.

One of the first private universities to open in the capital city was the Université Libre de Kigali (ULK) or the Kigali Independent University.

According to Professor Rwigamba Balinda, the founder of ULK, the university was created in 1996 as a private university to help increase student numbers in the post-genocide era.

Balinda first worked as a lecturer at NUR before creating ULK. “We realised that one university was not enough and we wanted to start another university in Kigali as the other [campuses] were located outside the capital,” he says.

ULK began with just two rented rooms but has since grown into a major institution. “We started with very few students,” Balinda says, “but our university has graduated about 40,000 people and our graduates are scattered across the globe.”

Looking ahead

Despite the remarkable progress, Murigande acknowledges that challenges remain. The increase in the number of universities has also led to quality challenges, which is something the government is tackling. The government is also working to deal with this issue by encouraging foreign universities to set up campuses in Rwanda.

The ultimate goal, Murigande says, is to produce graduates who can fill the country’s and global development’s needs.

“We want graduates who understand, not only Rwanda, but global issues such as global warming, global insecurity, food security, issues of peace and security.

“Universities need to produce graduates who can, first and foremost, serve Rwanda well, but who are also able to serve the world, wherever life takes them,” he says.

This demands sound policies and a creative and enabling environment. It also takes constant training and retraining of the actors in the higher education system, mainly the teachers, the professors and managers of universities so that they understand their missions and ensure they are equipped to deliver on their missions, he notes.

Even so, he would like to see the government and other partners invest even more in education – for the sake of the country’s growth and sustainable development.

An ongoing project

What also remains to be done, according to experts, is for universities to keep the momentum and train people with both the knowledge needed to perform various tasks in their respective fields, and also the ability to ensure that civic education is improved in all higher learning institutions.

“The country is still recovering from the wounds of the genocide, but the history of what led to the tragedy tends to be ignored. There is a dire need for universities to take the lead and teach the history of genocide and how it was prepared and executed,” says a veteran history don who prefers anonymity.

Although genocide is discussed, experts want it to be escalated as a topic and taught widely as a cross-cutting issue. Some teachers and lecturers still shy away from deepening the subject and little research is done about it – and students need to understand the past better, according to the experts.

The work continues

The journey of resilience in the university sector has been instrumental in producing quality graduates without any discrimination over the past 30 years.

For Professor Callixte Kabera, the Vice-chancellor of the East African University, Ruanda, who doubles as the president of the Private Universities’ Association, universities are ready to do all it takes to promote the quality of education while fighting genocide ideology with all means.

Genocide ideology is a combination of genocide denial, negation and minimisation of the event, which has been manifesting in speeches and written work.

“As higher learning institutions, we understand the task ahead of us and we have been working on this. [But] we have to work on quality improvement, ensure we churn out quality graduates and ensure they have all it takes to promote unity and reconciliation wherever they go,” he says.

And, for Ndikumana, the University of Rwanda will always strive to become a fountain of exemplary education and the light of hope for all Rwandans.

“We need to be at the forefront to promote the country’s unity and become the light to the rest of the country,” he says.

Looking back, the story of Rwanda’s higher education system is a testament to the power of education to heal and rebuild. From the ashes of genocide, a new generation of Rwandans has emerged.