Smart and Sustainable Transport and Logistics SSTL

Centre of excellence development, Mobility initiatives, Industry-Education cooperation, Curriculum development

In the past decade, Rwanda has experienced a tremendous rate of economic growth and associated modernization of transport infrastructure. The government of Rwanda is aiming at becoming a transport and logistics hub of Africa. Therefore, there is a critical need for well-trained transport and logistics professionals to help achieve this ambition. It is in this respect the University of Rwanda through its College of Science and Technology is establishing a Center of Excellence in Transport Planning, Engineering and Logistics to meet the transport and logistics needs of the country and the region. As a new center – established in 2020 – it has vast expectations and development needs, where this project is partly responding to. This project aims at curriculum development in the field of transportation and logistics. In the project the expertise of two Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences, TAMK and Novia, are combined to create and develop curriculum that would take into account the core competences – such as smart mobility and AI, e-mobility, aviation, maritime logistics and transportation – as well as pedagogical means to reach the learning targets and qualifications.

The project activities include curriculum development workshops, online development and meetings, site visits, industry cooperation and benchmarking the curricula. The transport and logistics engineering competences and qualifications are taken into account, as well as pedagogical means, including online and digital technologies and long-term exchanges for benchmarking and learning from the Finnish educational system. In addition, the curricula of Finnish UAS’s will be developed so that there will be studies suitable for exchanges with Rwandan students. As a result, there will be modules which can be accredited for exchange students in both countries.