Rwanda government shuts down Mt. Kenya University for offering FAKE degrees

President Paul Kagame’s government
has closed down Kenya’s only private
university operating in Rwanda,
accusing the institution of offering
sub-standard training.
Rwanda’s Ministry of Education,
through the Higher Education Council
(HEC) — the country’s tertiary
education regulator — has issued a
notice suspending Mt. Kenya
University from offering undergraduate
courses in nursing, pharmacy and
medical laboratory sciences as well
as both bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in public health.
“Due to not fulfilling requirements, the
following academic programmes of
Mount Kenya University Kigali Campus
have been suspended until all the
deficiencies are addressed,” HEC said
in a notice dated August 28.
The regulator also moved to shut down
MKU’s newly opened Rusizi Campus
saying it was established “without
fulfilling the due requirements.”
HEC declined to reveal the number of
students affected by the ban on the
five courses, whether the ban affects
both new and continuing students and
the time frame given to MKU to
address the issues raised.
”We have got an obligation to do our
regulatory duties without promoting or
defaming any institution,” HEC
executive director Innocent Mugisha
told the Business Daily in an
interview.
The disciplinary and quality
assurance measures only relate to
MKU’s operations in Rwanda, where
HEC has powers to regulate higher
education.
MKU founder and chairman Simon
Gicharu promised to shed more light
on the matter upon his return from a
trip to India.
The MKU Kigali Campus was opened
in 2010 and mainly offers courses in
health education and Executive MBA
programmes. It has more than 4,000
learners in three locations — Kicukiro,
Camp Kigali and Town Centre — and
was about to open a fourth, Rusizi,
when it ran into trouble.
Rwanda has a few public tertiary
institutions including the University of
Rwanda, integrated polytechnics,
Institute of Legal Practice and
Development and three nursing
schools. The nascent east African
economy has 15 private universities.
Kenya’s Commission for University
Education (CUE) secretary David Some
declined to comment on the matter.
The revelations are likely to raise
anxiety among MKU’s recent
graduates and learners currently
enrolled in the affected programmes,
given that these courses are also
offered in Kenya.
The development also leaves parents
and guardians in a cloud of uncertainty
over their investment in these
courses.
Nairobi-based professional bodies in
the named health sciences fields —
which accredit colleges and licence
graduates in their respective trades —
weighed in on the matter saying they
plan a fresh audit on the affected
courses at MKU.
MKU is one of Kenya’s biggest
privately held universities with a
student body of about 52,000. It
started in 1996 as Thika Institute of
Technology, a mid-level college. It
was chartered in January 2011 by
President Mwai Kibaki.
The Pharmacy and Poisons Board
(PPB) said it will send a team to
review the pharmacy programme at
MKU once it gets details from Rwanda
on why it has stopped the course in
Kigali