INES-Ruhengeri officially opened its doors on November, 17th 2003, under the name of
“Université Internationale au Rwanda (UNIR)”
His Excellency Paul KAGAME, President of the Republic of Rwanda laid the foundation stone for the launch of the construction of the Campus, on June 30th, 2003. INES obtained its degree awarding powers by the Ministerial order number 005/2010/MINEDUC of June 16th, 2010. Its first graduation ceremony took place on June 30th 2010.
Since its creation in 2003, INES chose following experts’ recommendations and the surrounding communities’ orient its teachings to Applied Sciences. By applied we mean that all the taught sciences at INES are applied to the population daily problems, seeking to propose answers to them.
INES programs titles and contents have been formulated and redesigned with this orientation in mind Competence based learning Student centered approach Labour market orientation Relation with professional Institutions Applied research in connection with Regional Development
Knowledge circulation is a key strategy to position INES in the external environment and to shape the interrelation between academic services and regional/ labour market developments. The concept of knowledge circulation is translated into a model to connect the learning process with knowledge creation (of individuals, groups, the organization – internal and external), in order to realize continuous change and improvement to achieve the goals required by the clients and the institution.
In 2008, after a deep analysis and consultations with different stakeholders and partners in education, the Institut d’Enseignement Supérieur de Ruhengeri (INES-Ruhengeri) has adopted a new and innovative orientation of its teaching i.e. becoming an Institute of applied sciences. This new orientation requires INES-Ruhengeri to operate a complete change of its academic systems as well as of its administrative management processes. As for any change in human life, this is surely very challenging, and it needs careful planning. It is from this perspective that this roadmap is being elaborated.
In April 2010, INES-Ruhengeri chose to officially profile itself as an Institute of Applied Sciences. The choice of this new orientation in Rwanda and in the region was a response to the findings from the labor market survey which was conducted in 2008 by INES academic staff in order to collect impressions of potential employers of INES graduates. This choice was once again positively received by the Government of Rwanda since soon after on 16 June 2010, INES-Ruhengeri’s programs were fully accredited by Ministerial Order N° 005/2010/MINEDUC.
With the liberalization of Education in Rwanda which was followed by the creation of more than 13 private Higher Learning Institutions, the number of graduates from tertiary education increased considerably. However, there is a way to think that this increase in the number of employees with higher qualifications was not followed by an increase in the competences; reason why there is continuous request for Higher learning Institutions to increase the quality of their education. Indeed quality issues are very concerning to the Rwandan Government as well as to all other stakeholders:
Analysis of all these complaints, especially analysis of the findings from the above mentioned labour market survey, can be summarized in the fact that there is a serious mismatch between University products (graduates) and labour market needs: Universities are either teaching wrong things, or they are teaching the right things in a wrong way! In reflecting and conducting deeper researches on this issue, INES-Ruhnegeri’s leadership realised that the problem is not about what but about how. They then started looking for the solution (by visiting other universities abroad to try to learn from them and undergoing consultation trainings by consultants like Ans Voordouw, Ir. Jan Oomens and Juerg Inderbitzen, and the idea of applied sciences came in as the only possible answer to solve the problem of mismatch between quality of graduates and the labour market needs.
The review of curricula in collaboration with stakeholders taking into consideration the requirements of the professional field and regional durable development was set in the strategies to enhance INES orientation of become an Institute of Applied Sciences. In the Academic year 2011 INES-Ruhengeri has made that review for its programs. In some programs options were inserted in order to create more specialized graduates. It is in this sense that:
In the academic year 2011, INES-Ruhengeri has considerably increased the number and quality of its academic staff
Among these Universities we can state: Lucerne University of Applied Sciences in Switzland with which INES is developing a project of Interdisciplinary competence development centre, RTWH Aachen University, Hogeschool Utrecht etc.
In its continued quest to provide sustainable contribution to the solving of the land related problems in Rwanda, INES-RUHENGERI after succeeding in launching a program of Land Survey is now in the process of starting two other programs which are complementary to Land surveying. Those are:
INES-RUHENGERI is now comfortably equipped in terms of laboratory, library, ICT and other infrastructures.