Mitigating the social and economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic in private higher education of Rwanda.

A: Background: COVID-19 is a humanitarian and societal crisis of unprecedented speed and scale. It has both immediate and long-lasting implications for how people work and participate in society. Private universities, which enroll over half of Rwandan higher education students, are concerned by COVID19 pandemic not only result in a loss of students, but academic staff as well. The private universities predict high numbers of dropout cases due to COVID-19. The students who usually pay for themselves are employees in private companies which are either suspended or unable to pay them. For the others source their school fees either from parents or other sponsors, all of whom are socially and economically hit by the pandemic. B. Goal and Objectives The goal of this project is to provide to direct beneficiaries such as the students, lecturers, parents, universities the social and economic situation analysis as a way to create resilience for curbing the effects of COVID-19 Objectives: 1. To analyze the social and economic situation of private higher learning institutions pre and during COVID-19 Pandemic in Rwanda. 2. To identify the social and economic effects faced by private higher learning institutions during COVID-19 Pandemic in Rwanda. 3. To suggest the strategies as solution to COVID-19 Pandemic educational disruptions in private higher learning institutions in Rwanda. 4. To assess the contribution of private HLIs resilience to mitigate the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic in Rwanda. C. Methods  The research project will sample purposively the private higher learning institutions in Rwanda.  The information for this study will be gathered through questionnaires and interviews  The research project will work on large amounts of textual information and systematically identify, categorize and excerpt information desired to answer research questions of this research project.  The findings will be disseminated through different ways like academic conferences, publication, door to door messages, public service announcements, news releases and government or community websites D: Expected Outcomes are:  Inform on the strategies as solutions to COVID-19 Pandemic educational disruptions in private higher learning institutions.  Document on contributions of private HLIs resilience to mitigate the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic.