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Fellow Name: Patrick Tuyishime Kayijamahe

Country: Rwanda

Fellow’s home audit office: Office of the Auditor General of State Finances of Rwanda

Title: Principal Auditor

Email: Patrick.TuyishimeKayijamahe@oag.gov.rw

Audit Plan Topic: Management of dropouts in public primary and secondary schools

Canadian Host Office: Office of the Auditor General of Canada

Grad Quote: “My Fellowship improved my leadership and performance auditing skills.”

Gallery (2024):

Two experience images (2024):

Decoration Color: Blue

Profile Headshot:

My Fellowship:

My Canadian placement:

Office of the Auditor General (OAG) of Canada

My Canadian audit team:

I was part of a team auditing the Yukon Nominee Program and Yukon Business Nominee Program, led by Audit Director Jean-François Nadeau.

My most valuable learning:

• Excellent communication leads to excellent collaboration. (This is linked to engaging auditees.)
• Engaging advisory committees (external people who have expertise in the subject matter) from the beginning of the audit contributes to strong audit planning.

How my Canadian colleagues and mentors helped me:

I appreciated how they gave me a good orientation in OAG Canada guidelines and principles and collaboration with other team members. They are humble and respectful people.

What I enjoyed most:

I enjoyed how they were always ready to help me with any questions or guidance regarding work, as well as social interactions like inviting me for coffee during break times and having discussions outside of work.

My audit plan:

I developed my audit plan with the guidance of my mentor at OAG Canada, Principal Mathieu Lequain.

The connection to my country’s development priorities:

My project is to conduct a performance audit of dropouts management in public primary and secondary schools. Education is a critical investment in the future growth and development of Rwanda, as a country that is committed to being a knowledge-based economy.

Minimizing dropouts will boost achievement of national goals to equip citizens with sufficient and appropriate competencies (skills, knowledge and attitudes) to drive the continued social and economic development of the country.

Equally, the audit project will contribute to achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4, Target 4.1, that is to ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes by 2030.

How CAAF and my host office helped:

CAAF helped me to reinforce my skills in performance auditing, especially leadership skills, and to learn new methodologies and techniques for having a successful and impactful audit.

My mentors gave me feedback and guidance that helped me develop a well-structured and logically organized plan.

The skills and knowledge I improved by developing this plan:

I learned the importance of:

• Having an agreement/written acknowledgement with auditees that audit criteria are suitable for them during planning phase.
• Seeking auditee feedback to identify areas to improve and lessons learnt during audit processes.

My future impact:

The new knowledge I’m most excited to share with my colleagues:

I plan to share knowledge of the SAI Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) with my colleagues. That knowledge will help them to identify the value and benefits of the OAG office for citizens, which will show the strengths to continue with and weaknesses to improve to achieve greater well-being for citizens.

The difference I hope to make:

My future work will help the country to achieve the global goal of ensuring that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes, as well as applying Gender-Based Analysis Plus in policy design and implementation.

My professional goals:

My professional goals are to:

• Improve stakeholder engagement – Develop strategies to enhance communication and engagement with stakeholders, ensuring that audit recommendations are effectively implemented and understood.
• Strengthen capacity building – Lead training sessions and workshops for staff to enhance their skills in areas such as data analytics, risk assessment, and compliance, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

My Experience Part 1:

The most Canadian thing I did was…

Eating the popular food poutine and enjoying Niagara Falls.

My favourite cultural experience in Canada was…

Meeting respectful people who want to help others.

My Experience Part 2:

My Fellowship experience in one sentence:

It was very useful and improved my leadership and performance auditing skills.

My Fellowship in a single word:

Important.

Now that I have completed the Fellowship…

I will share the knowledge I gained with others for improvement of performance audit reporting. 

Gender: Female

Patrick holds a Master of Science in internet systems and a Bachelor of Science in electronics and telecommunications engineering from Kigali Independent University-ULK and the University of Rwanda respectively. Patrick is currently a Principal Auditor at the Office of the Auditor General of State Finances of Rwanda with three years of experience in performance auditing and seven years in engineering and academic activities.

He has completed the three-module performance audit course offered by the African Organization of English-speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) and participated in different training sessions on performance auditing offered by CAAF.

My goals for the Fellowship

As a participant in the Fellowship program, I intend to improve my knowledge and skills in performance auditing and I hope to acquire and implement innovative methods that can enhance my home office’s performance audits, enabling me to execute impactful and value-driven performance audits effectively in the times ahead.

The impact I hope to make as a graduate Fellow

As a graduate Fellow, my plan is to contribute significantly to performance audits within my home office, country, and globally. I aim to achieve this by sharing the knowledge and skills I gain from the Fellowship program with colleagues and different stakeholders.