Towards developing a collaborative PhD program across ARUA member universities: experiences from the University of Rwanda, Rwanda

Abstract

This report highlights the status of PhD education in Rwanda. The University of Rwanda, the only ARUA member university in the country serves as a case study to explore the nature of the doctoral programme within the country and the university. This is done in the effort of making recommendations towards the development of collaborative PhD programmes across ARUA universities. The report starts off by providing a brief overview of the country's socioeconomic status which has a bearing on how universities organise PhD programmes, and which may influence the direction of the design of collaborative programmes as envisaged by African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA). It further details are the national and institutional policy and operational frameworks for PhD programmes at the University of Rwanda, the nature of student access and progression policies across the programmes, opportunities for designing collaborative arrangements, and challenges that need to be addressed. The report is divided into five sections. The next section provides an overview of Rwanda's socio-economic and political dynamics, including a brief description of the Tanzania higher education landscape. Section three delves into the case study of the university and the two selected programmes. Section four presents the findings from the data collected from the two case study programmes. Section five provides some recommendations and conclusions.