Francis Mwangi

Francis Mwangi is the Registrar in charge of Academic and Research Affairs Meet the don responsible for quality at MKU Rwanda Were he ever asked to document MKU Rwanda’s journey, Francis Mwangi Waweru would pen a first-hand account covering March 2011 to date. He has been at the campus since then. What should not surprise his audience, though, would be the common thread running through his tale: quality and transformation. Those two words run through Francis’ mind when he looks around his place of work. It is not only the premises that embody the quality and transformation; it is also how the institution runs. Francis has been part of MKU Rwanda’s transformation and relishes the prospect of seeing it hit new heights of success. In his view, quality has played a big part in making the campus an attractive destination for many students from Rwanda and even other countries in Africa. Francis arrived at the campus in March 2011 and has, for nearly a decade, watched it grow; actually, transform. He joined as an assistant lecturer in the School of Business and Economics and has risen over the years. He is now the Director of Quality Assurance and Teaching Programmes. He is also the current campus Management Representative on Quality Management System (QMS) matters and coordinates the implementation of the MKU Rwanda QMS. Francis points out four key areas in which the campus has changed. When he reported, it had student 500 students. Today, the population is in excess of 3,000. The number of programmes has also increased. “We didn’t have health sciences and hospitality,” recalls Francis. “We had journalism, education, business, information technology (IT) and environmental science programmes.” By the time he arrived at the Kigali campus, MKU was preparing to be certified for the ISO 9001:2008 quality management system. The university was certified in 2012 and later upgraded the QMS to the ISO 9001:2015 edition. Francis was in the thick of things, helping streamline operations to further entrench quality service provision at the campus. Yet another change was the addition of a management information system (MIS), which automated operations such as student and staff services that were previously done manually. The outcome was greater customer satisfaction. “For example, the issue of missing marks became history,” says Francis. He has also witnessed infrastructure development. “When I came, the campus was operating from rented premises,” he says, noting that the consolidation of the centres into one location through creation of the Kicukiro campus, was a major milestone. Francis first came into contact with MKU while a Master’s student studying human resources management at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). He did his attachment at MKU’s main campus in Thika in 2009 under the tutelage of Boniface Murigi, who was then the university’s human resource manager. Thereafter, he was appointed part-time lecturer at the Thika campus, setting the stage for his journey to and in Rwanda.