Focus Media (Kigali)
Mercy Omuntu
12 November 2009
Sixteen career advisory centers were launched in different institutes of higher learning last Wednesday, to help students make better professional choices.
The creation of the Career Advisory Centers (CAC) was decided at the Government's Leadership Retreat March 2009, and after months of preparations the program was officially launched last week in sixteen public and private universities.
CAC is a joint initiative of the RDB-Human Capital and Institutional Development division (HCID) and institutes of higher learning aimed at making a difference in the professional lives of graduates in future. These centers will also serve as students' advisory bureaus to provide services on career development.
In preparation of the program, a workshop was organized in May to train the heads of the CAC, during which it emerged that the CAC staff were still lacking in skills and needed more training. Therefore, a team of 21 representatives of various universities went on a study trip to South Africa in October, with the aim of providing them with basic knowledge about the workings of the CAC, before they start their work.
South Africa was chosen because it is one of the countries with the most advanced career education system, according to Deogratias Harorimana, the deputy CEO at RDB in charge of HCID. He said that the lessons learnt will enable CAC staff to perform their duties effectively. "The vital role of the CACs is to enable people to know for which fields they are most qualified and in which areas of the labor market they are most likely to find a job."
He added that even university heads should be critical about the progress of their students, because most of them do not get jobs that are actually in line with their studies, when they are out of the universities. "So we need to help students plan their career goals in advance. We even intend to set up a similar system on secondary level once it is well implemented at the universities," he said.
In order to streamline operations, a national strategy is to be established to help universities to implement the CAC program.
Meanwhile, university students are enthusiastic about the idea, and are ready to fully make use of the centers. Celestine Ntambara, a student at KIST in software development and management, said he is personally eager to find out how the center will assist students to undertake courses that can help them create their own jobs in the future.
"The main problem I see is not really poor choices of courses students take, but the fact that most times the number of jobs available is less than the number of job seekers," Ntambara said.
During the launch, RDB also donated equipment to the universities worth Frw 200 million to enable them to run the centers. Among the equipment provided was office furniture, computers, stationary and telephones.
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