Education Quality and Entry Requirements for Health-Related Programs

HEALTH PROFESSIONALS' EQUIVALENCE PROCESSING AND STUDENTS' INDEXING

“Equivalence Certificate" is issued to students who have completed their studies and obtained their Degrees from Foreign accredited institutions of higher learning.
It has been observed that many of the applicants for Equivalence who have graduated from Health-related programs outside Rwanda, have no "Index numbers" as required by respective Health Professional Regulatory Bodies. In addition, most of them do not meet "Admission requirements" into Higher Education in Rwanda (2 Principal passes in the core subjects).
To resolve the above issues and have qualified and competent staff in health sector, the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with Human Resource for Health Secretariat (HRHS), Higher Education Council (HEC) and Health Professional Regulatory Bodies (RMDC, NCNM, RAHPC, and NPC)1 operating in Rwatlda, adopted the following:

1. All students wishing to study Health-related programs in Rwanda or abroad, must be indexed before enrollment. Indexing will also help to plan and organize internship and qualifying exams for graduates.

2. All Health professional students graduating from foreign institutions must undertake and successfully pass the Licensure exam from their respective Professional Regulatory Bodies before a "Rwandan Equivalence" is issued.

3. Upon successfully passing the Licensure exam, Health Professional Regulatory Bodies will recommend graduates for equivalence. The applicant for equivalence shall be requested to present a recommendation issued by the relevant health professional regulatory body. Before issuing the equivalence, as usual, HEC will verify the qualification of the Graduate according to the normal procedures.

4. The applicant for index number, should fulfill Admission Requirements into Higher Education (i.e. 2 Principal Passes) and Specific Health Professional Regulatory Bodies Criteria for Health-related programs, as follows:

• To have studied Science Subjects in Secondary School (A level): Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
• To have at least passed core subjects of Biology in Chemistry at:

a) Grade C: for all students wishing to study health-related programmes at Bachelor level
b) Grade D: for all students wishing to study health-related programmes at Advanced Diploma level.

The above will be implemented from the academic year 2021.

5. All schools implementing health-related programmes with ongoing non-indexed students and individuals studying health-related programmes outside Rwanda are given a transition period of three (3) months counted from the 1st February 2021, to complete the indexing process.

See the Official Letter attached.