On this Friday 25th June there will be seventh election of URSU leaders. Electoral campaign has been starting on Monday this week with Covid-19 preventive measures and the elected leaders last one year mandate.
Before getting into the election, let’s get to know what they are really responsible for.
From 2014 till present the University of Rwanda proved status establishing University of Rwanda Students Union (URSU) that links all students and represent them with university authority and partners.
URSU functions on behalf of the students and financially underpinned differently by internal and external donations.
After renewal of UR legal status in 2013 and shifting from National University of Rwanda (UNR) to University of Rwanda (UR), all nine campuses belonged to University of Rwanda and became wide organ.
On 28th July 2014 University of Rwanda Students Union was established as a big unit that can represents UR students across all nine campuses and coordinates students and authority through conducting advocacy as well as several partnership.
URSU is structured into three sub-organs which is Executive committee comprises Guild president and deputy; general secretary; ministers and deputies, Board of representatives comprises speaker and deputy, secretary, school representatives and deputies, department representatives and vices, class representatives and deputies, Arbitration committee comprises president and vice, secretary and advisers.
Each sub-unit has its duties but they are interconnected in terms of working together. Each campus has its board and all boards are represented on UR authority level.
The budget of UR Student Union is based on the donations from different partners, student-based contribution and University of Rwanda regular support as well as money from procurements inside the campuses.
Aaron NTAGANZWA, speaker of board , said Students Union works closely with campuses departments basically welfare department for alleviating the challenges that the students face and advocate them.
Back flipping to the page of elections, Jackson GATUNGE , president of arbitration committee said that there are 23 official candidates who have been starting the campaign and they are competing for six positions.
University of Rwanda Student Union has advocated in improving student’s welfare like offering laptops, increasing internet connectivity as well as moving up the living allowance and so forth. And this is still their responsibility to do so.