Students of medicine at the University of Rwanda whose training had been declared sub-par in February by the Higher Education Council can proceed to graduate but they will have to undergo clinical internship thereafter.

A meeting between HEC, University of Rwanda, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Rwanda Medical and Dental Council and student leaders has cleared the 370 students. The meeting however, agreed that the students will undertake an intensive four-month clinical internship before they can practise.

The HEC interim executive director Benjamin Kageruka, said that the council would follow up to ensure that indeed, the recommendations for extra training are adhered to.

But dental surgery students who are yet to sit their final clinical examinations, will have to wait until March 2020 to graduate, after it was disclosed that two course modules were taught by unqualified lecturers.

“The students are going to be re-taught these two modules by qualified lecturers and also sit the final clinical examinations before they graduate in March 2020,” said Charles Murigande, deputy vice chancellor in charge of institutional advancement at the University of Rwanda.

Mr Murigande had earlier defended the university against accusations of delays in graduation.

“The University of Rwanda never decided against the graduation of medical students because as far as we are concerned, the students were adequately taught and examined on all the modules in their programme, and they fulfilled the academic requirements leading to the award of the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery,” he said via a WhatsApp message.

Students, too, insist they had done all there was to be done for them to graduate.

“We adhered to the curriculum that we were given, but the inspection by HEC suggested that we didn’t cover some modules,” a student who declined to be named said.

The students in question had previously been barred from graduating following an inspection last year by the HEC which found that they had missed important course units.

“Though we didn’t explicitly say they are not to graduate, we highlighted some important modules to improve on before they can graduate,” Mr Kageruka said in an interview with Rwanda Today.

The university management said auditors from HEC had expressed their doubts on the quality of clinical training of the students at the School of Medicine and Pharmacy.

“They said that because of the huge number of students graduating compared with the available consultants, they were not sufficiently mentored,” Mr Murigande said.

This is the first graduation for the medical students who studied under a shortened programme of five years rather than six years. Hence there are two different classes of medical students graduating.

The university management said that the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health will provide resources for the clinical internship.