James Kanyankole Gashumba

Dr Gashumba, is the Vice Chancellor of the recently created Rwanda Polytechnic (RP), a higher learning institution dedicated to training a highly skilled labour force in technical and vocational programs. RP has eight Integrated Polytechnic Regional Colleges (IPRCs) spread out in all provinces of the country. 

Dr Gashumba champions a curriculum that puts a premium on experiential learning, done and executed especially within the local context and community, with a reduced emphasis on rote learning and memory-recall assessment and testing. He wants to facilitate a college atmosphere where young people feel free to try and innovate and fail and try again, where ICT opens many opportunity to young people. 

Dr Gashumba spent six years as head of the Nyagatare Campus of the University of Rwanda. He serves on several advisory committees and Boards of Directors of local and international organizations. 

He trained as a veterinarian graduating in 1977 from Makerere University, Uganda. He obtained his MSc and PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London in Medical Parasitology. He has a number of postgraduate diplomas and certificates. He was on the research faculty of University of Sussex and University of Bristol UK in the 1980s and worked for many years with the Victoria State Department of Education, Australia, his interests being in the curriculum development and teaching of Sciences and Maths subjects, especially adapting ICT in the teaching, learning and assessment process.