KAMPALA- 21^st MARCH 2024.  The Education Policy Review Commission embarked on benchmarking study tours to select neighboring countries in the East African Community - Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. The objective is to gain a deeper insight and knowledge of the country’s education system. The findings and knowledge derived from the study tours will contribute to the synthesis of issues gathered through the reviews of the 1992 Government White Paper on Education, memoranda and Issues Papers submitted, and in-country regional consultations.

The just concluded benchmarking tour to Rwanda was led by the Chairperson of the Commission, Honorable (Retired Colonel) Amanya Mushega.  The Commissioner met key stakeholders in Rwanda’s Ministry of Education and its affiliate implementing organizations. In addition, the Commission visited samples of schools, polytechnics and universities.

Overall, the mission of Rwanda’s Ministry of Education is based on the National Vision 2050 which focuses on transforming Rwandan citizens into skilled human capital for socio-economic development of the country. This is attained by ensuring equitable access to quality education, focusing on combating illiteracy, promoting the use of science and technology, and enhancing critical thinking and positive values.

The key learnings made by the Commission:

1.    The education sector receives a budget allocation of 21%, coming second after infrastructure.

2.    The government offers free basic education and school feeding to all children. Parents do participate in providing exercise books, uniforms and a token of a dollar per term towards feeding in cash or in-kind.

3.    Rwanda’s basic education starts from pre-primary to secondary, level six. Pre-primary education admits 3–5-year-olds.  It takes a learner 12 years to complete basic education. Rwanda’s Primary school enrollment is at 98% due to collective community efforts in ensuring no child is out of school.  Official open hours for work in Rwanda is nine o’clock, same as school start time for learners. This gives parents more time to interface with children before school.

4.    Rwanda has 'Group Schools,' these house all levels of basic education from pre-primary to senior six in one location under one management team. Its pre-primary, known as Early Child Development Centers are funded by government. These are used to develop sensory-motor, social-emotional, and cognitive language skills, as well as building the capacity of parents and caregivers to fulfil their parenting obligations. There is a shift to using English as a language for instruction, since 2009, although Kinyarwanda is permitted in pre-primary.

5.    Boarding schools are prohibited in pre-primary and primary school, all learners go to day schools within their communities.

6.    The Country has a policy of increasing ICT use for enhanced learning and management. Therefore, teachers receive continuous professional development.

7.    National exams are issued to learners in all levels of learning in third term for standardization of knowledge acquisition.

8.    The Government of Rwanda merged all public universities, leading to one public university, University of Rwanda, with several colleges. Each university college handles a specialized area, for efficiency and effectiveness. Similarly, all polytechnics are Integrated Polytechnic Regional Colleges under Rwanda Polytechnic.

9.    Rwanda offers 70% of its student loans to undergraduates pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

10. Students entering medical school sit for a pre-entry aptitude test. The objective is to test the readiness of the students to undertake the course, beyond academic grades.

Furthermore, the Education Policy Review Commission met Ugandans living in Rwanda, hosted by Uganda’s High Commission to Rwanda. The Ugandans met include among others University lecturers, teachers, workers of development agencies, school owners, medical and veterinary doctors.  They asserted that Uganda has a good education system, which must be assessed and modified to make it applicable and relevant to Uganda’s development priorities, regional and global considerations.  Ugandans appreciate the new competence-based lower secondary curriculum, stating that the challenge is minimal implementers or lack of training for its delivery.

Some of the proposals they recommended for Uganda’s education include the following:  promotion of patriotism and nationalism; attitude change for all Ugandans; alignment of the policy implementation process to budgeting for priority activities; improvement of pay for teachers to attract and retain more quality teachers; digital inclusion; retooling of teachers in ICT usage; prioritized early childhood education; school feeding for all children in basic education; a major shift from passing examinations and ranking schools to actual teaching and learning; equipping Technical Vocational Education and Training schools to make them attractive to learners; and involvement of parents in improving learner welfare and outcomes.

-End-