In the past few days, education, ICT-driven education and research have hit headlines. A three-day conference, Innovation Africa 2014, that brought together education and ICT ministers from 26 countries and related experts, ended in Kigali on November 20.

Experts were quoted as calling on governments to put their money in research which ensures investing in ICTs that drive quality, better and greater access to education rather than doing it blindly.

David Fairbairn-Day, an education strategist at the global firm Promethean, reportedly observed: “There are instances where governments have invested a lot in technologies in education that have had little or no impact on improving the quality or access to education.”

To which Rwanda’s amiable Education Minister Prof Silas Lwakabamba responded: “This is why the government is soon moving from distribution of laptops to ‘smart classrooms’ to increase access as distributing laptops was not economically viable.”

The head of the Institute for Policy Analysis and Research - Rwanda (IPAR) was also quoted as linking the unemployment problem to “producing job-seekers and not job creators; graduates who cannot come up with innovative ideas that can be translated into jobs.” Her solution? “We need policy reforms that will ensure the education system is practical-oriented.”

Whether or not Rwanda’s education system is practical- or theory-driven, let me urge the authorities — especially since the man at the helm of education policy is, perhaps, the best mind and education administrator anywhere — to read, if he hasn’t, a recent problem-oriented survey report on education for development by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD). I will also call for a reflection on how research is approached and funded in Rwanda.

The report measures and names skills needed by adults to succeed in today’s competitive world. It teaches, for example, how countries such as Singapore and South Korea are leapfrogging developed countries in producing marketable and high value graduates.

Anybody would know that research is sacrosanct to development. As Kenyan academic and administrator Dr Wambui Kiai recently told us, “until we put research where it’s supposed to be…we can’t develop.”

Rwanda has premised its attainment of a middle-income status on a knowledge economy, but it can’t have it when research hasn’t attained its rightful place. Now, I won’t discuss the state of research in the country — because, overall, it’s still poor. Instead, I will comment on how the research policy is applied.

The government and its development partners fund academic research through universities and policy-oriented research through institutes such as IPAR. The universities will channel the funds through their research units — which then call for research projects, review them and either accept or dismiss them.

But going by colleagues’ testimonies, this approach is ineffective and frustrating as it allows for personal preferences, prejudices and incompetence to derail the process and outcome — sometimes leading to non-use of funds, citing excuses such as capacity challenges.

Yet a number of my colleagues tell me that, since most members on the evaluation committees in universities are known to them personally, with many coming from the old traditional mould that prefer individual contact, prostrating before them and expressing reverence before anything can be done, many end up excluded from partaking in the funds!

To make research units more efficient and effective, external peer reviewers of proposals need to be put on board. They would be charged with making evaluations and recommendations on the basis of the methodology and usefulness of proposals, not the applicants.

Secondly, for the lack of resources to invest in large research endeavours that can drive discovery and innovation, there is a need for researchers to learn proposal writing and the politics of aid, funding agencies and foundations. This would allow them to directly apply for funds from big foundations abroad that give sizeable medium- and long-term funds.

Most crucially, more professional foundations are necessary, to drive the research agenda forward. These would not only concentrate on raising serious funds for research but also inculcating the culture of trusting in the scientific method in approach to knowledge and policy as well as rewarding knowledge.

Dr Christopher Kayumba, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the School of Journalism, the University of Rwanda, and managing consultant at MGC Consult Ltd. E-mail: [email protected] ; Twitter: CKayumba