Image: Project members during the kick off visit in Kigali (Spring 2024)
HEP-TED is rooted in a collaboration facilitated through the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning (GINTL) since 2022. The consortium of higher education institutions (HEIs) consists of two Rwandan – the University of Rwanda (College of Education) and Rwanda Polytechnic – and four Finnish HEIs – the University of Helsinki Jamk University of Applied Sciences Tampere University, and Tampere University of Applied Sciences.
In addition to the collaborating HEIs, HEP-TED is supported by the following partners: the Higher Education Council of Rwanda (HEC), Rwanda Basic Education Board, Rwanda TVET Board, the Embassy of Rwanda in the Nordic Countries, the Embassy of Finland in Dar es Salaam, and Hills Connect Oy.
In its aims, HEP-TED is not limited to a collaboration between these listed institutions. In fact, the project aims in particular to strengthen capacities for cross-institutional collaboration through long-term evolving partnership, both at regional and international levels. In that sense, the project seeks to enhance institutional learning through joint training and visits, using insights from regional collaborations with countries like Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia. During the project implementation, research findings on responsible North-South higher education partnerships will be applied.
The University of Helsinki is Finland’s largest and oldest academic institution. Since 1640, it has contributed to the establishment of a fair and equal society that is considered the best in the world according to a number of indicators. Today, this multidisciplinary academic community solves problems that concern all of us, also on the global scale.
A community of 40,000 students and employees is diversely open, comprehensively quality conscious and joyfully serious. Internationalisation means many things for us. Together we create solutions that will shape the future of our planet and all of humanity.
The University of Helsinki functions as HEP-TED’s coordinating partner.
Jamk University of Applied Sciences, located in Central Finland, is a multidisciplinary higher education institution with 8500 students. It focuses on the strategic areas of bioeconomy, multidisciplinary rehabilitation, applied cybersecurity, automation and robotics, tourism and innovative learning.
Truly international and globally networked, Jamk has achieved the EU’s 2013 Erasmus Award for Excellence for international mobility, finishing first among more than 4,000 European institutes of higher education. Jamk has received national and international recognition for its high quality. With quality management it ensures the academic quality of education, RDI activities and services provided.
The vision of Rwanda Polytechnic (RP) is to provide quality education that adheres with relevant standards through vocational education, enabling beneficiaries to acquire skills required to create jobs and compete in the labour market. As a relatively new institution, RP recognises the importance of collaborating with other institutions such as technical universities to learn and share experience. This collaboration is aimed at enhancing the quality of education, improving graduates’ employability, including job creation and fostering their ability to compete in the labour market.
The University of Rwanda (UR) is a public higher learning institution established in 2013. That year, the National University of Rwanda (NUR) founded in 1963 were merged together with other six public higher learning institutions to form the University of Rwanda (UR). HEP-TED partner is the University of Rwanda, College of Education.
UR is committed to graduating the next generation of leaders in Rwanda who are prepared and dedicated to building a more just and sustainable world. The main purpose of creating this national institution is to enhance the quality of Rwanda’s higher education provision, while achieving economies of scale and efficiency in operation.
UR provides opportunities for students to pursue a variety of programs - some that are quite specialised in nature, others that are multi-disciplinary and problem-based in focus - and to undertake their studies at different locations across the country, both through classes at designated campuses and through access to distance learning.
Tampere University is a multidisciplinary higher education institution located in the Pirkanmaa region of Finland. It hosts about 22,000 students and more than 4,000 staff members along its seven faculties. The university brings together research and education in the fields of technology, health and society and collaborates with partners in a vast number of institutions of higher education and other organisations worldwide, developing research and innovation that aim at improving problems of our and future times. Tampere University strategy identifies its values as being based on courage, critical thinking, diversity, erudition-bildung, learner-centredness, openness and responsibility.
The Faculty of Management and Business (MAB), which is involved in the HEP-TED project with Rwanda, has about 3,500 students and 300 staff members. It develops teaching and research in the areas of administrative and business sciences, politics, information and knowledge management and industrial engineering and management. This multicity of disciplines offers a chance to develop new perspectives to problems in these fields beyond and across traditional disciplinary boundaries, by providing multidisciplinary and internationally high-level research and education.
MAB has wide networks both within the university and wider society, contributing in both legislative and business processes, and engaging in active communication with other societal actors, such as businesses, public administration and NGOs.
Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) is a multidisciplinary higher education institution whose expertise ranges from engineering to business and entrepreneurship with a focus on pedagogics and vocational teacher training. As a university of applied sciences, TAMK has a special emphasis on practically oriented education and research activities.
TAMK has over 13,000 students, and offers over 40 degree programmes, of which nine are in English. TAMK’s profile both as a modern and dynamic educational institution as well as an active project actor allows for genuine, long-lasting and confidential partnerships with companies and SMEs, as well as with public and third-sector organisations.