Graduates of the Huye-based protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, best known as PIASS are asking to have their case heard after being refused jobs a couple of days ago.
Rwanda’s Higher Education Council (HEC) refused placement of the graduates citing their failure to present internship certificates.
“To be recruited as a professional teacher is supposed to present the internship certificate. No debate around that,” Dr. Rose Mukankomeje, Executive Director of HEC said.
Mukankomeje added that PIASS graduates who were denied jobs do not have any other problem, except that they did not have a complete file; theirs was lacking an internship certificate.
Dr. Mukankomeje said that PIASS management agreed that they should prepare internships for students who missed it.
PIASS officials said that the requirement to conduct internships is new and could not have affected professionals that have already been teaching.
“Our curriculum was accepted by HEC in 2013 and the rule of ‘a must internship’ was not there then. We did not teach other course modules and leave out an internship, the new rule came two years ago,” Prof. Elysee Musemakweri, PIASS Vice Chancellor told KT Press.
He added that students who graduated before the rule were not affected by these changes.
“HEC would not have denied them jobs because it’s not their mistake. They would have been given an option to conduct internships in schools where they were placed, instead of being denied jobs after passing recruitment exams, ” Musemakweri further said adding that 290 teachers were affected.
“Concerned teachers are now conducting internships for one month.”
The law not only affected new teachers, but also those that graduated a couple of years ago.
“I have been teaching for 4 years, but when I passed job recruitment exams for public schools, I was denied an opportunity. It is not clear my intake could be affected by a law that was put in place after we have graduated,” a teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity told KT Press.
According to Mugabo, the internal practice is an exercise done internally by teaching classmates, it is done by preparing lessons, evaluating students─ reportedly similar to what is done during an internship.
“We studied according to the University curriculum. the new one should not affect us in any way,” Appollinaire Kubwimana, another graduate said.
