Africa gets $10m grant for education

Kigali. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Rwanda has received a $10.8 million fund from MasterCard foundation to boost its technology education programme in Africa.

The partnership announcement was made on June 20 during Carnegie Mellon University’s graduation ceremony, when 24 students were conferred with master’s degrees in Information Technology and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Seventy students from Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and the US studying under the programme have so far graduated. Some 125 academically talented but financially disadvantage students from sub-Saharan Africa are expected to benefit from the new funding partnership as part of MasterCard Scholar Foundation programme with a scholarship package of $86,000 on average per student.

The beneficiaries are expected to use their knowledge to lead change in their communities and contribute to meaningful transformation across Africa through the application of ICT in various fields. Carnegie Mellon University president Subra Suresh said for developing countries to be economically successful all citizens have to be well educated.

“ICT is very much at the core of all of this with computer science and related science fields,” he told a news conference on Monday here.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Rwanda campus was established in 2011 to train Africans in technology to address the shortage of ICT professionals.

For the 2015/16 academic year, tuition fee for CMU’s master’s degree programme in the College of Engineering is $42,000.

All course fees are included in the tuition for courses offered by faculty in Kigali as well as courses available via distance technology from Carnegie Mellon’s US campus in Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley. However, for students enrolled in Kigali, through a combined financial aid package from CMU and the Rwandan government, the cost will be $16,000 with an additional 50 per cent scholarship of $8,000 available to East African Community members.

However, the cost of education at Carnegie Mellon is high and makes it difficult for many African students to enroll in its Rwanda’s programme.

Rwanda’s Education minister Papias Malinda said the country needede more ICT experts.

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