The ongoing comprehensive curriculum review of lower and upper primary education will increase the number of learning periods per week from the current 36 to 45 pushing the school day to 4pm from the current 2pm.

This will put the annual contact hours to 900 up from around 700, as recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).

This was said by Dr Joyce Musabe, the Head of Curriculum Development at Rwanda Education Board, during the Ministry of Education’s joint review of the education sector.

She said the changes will addess issues of school feeding and students’ welfare.

Other changes that Musabe noted were that the number of subjects at primary level which will be increased from five to seven and eight at lower and upper level, respectively.

"We will make all subjects compulsory as well as introduce French and ICT. This will see the number of weeks in a year go up to 39 from the current 36,” she said.

At the pre-primary level, the new curriculum will seek to establish foundations of literacy, numeracy and social skills through play-based learning.

The changes will see the introduction of new subjects at the lower secondary level and an emphasis in co-curricular activities.  

"Amongst the new subjects to be introduced are history and citizenship, biology and health sciences, geography and environment, French, Literature in English and ICT in education. The new curriculum will also adjust the learner’s methods of interaction with their teachers. ”

At the Advanced level, there will be eight combinations in sciences, six in humanities and three in languages.

She also noted that the upper secondary level will focus on subsidiary mathematics in sciences, humanities with economics as well as communication skills.

Currently, a task force is in the process of finalising curriculum framework in terms of policies, regulations, and guidelines that govern the development and implementation of curricula.

This will provide standards and benchmarks for the evaluation of the quality of students achievements and school operations.

Musabe also noted that they were in the process of elaborating the new competency based curricula and will, beginning next year, embark on training teachers on the use of the new curricula.

The curriculum development process has on board members of the private sector, faith based organisations, development partners and government institutions such as Ministry of Finance, CNLG and international bodies.

The Permanent Secretary in the education ministry, Sharon Haba, noted that there was need for cross sector collaborations to make use of the diversity of stakeholders and to have a clear understanding of the strategies.

Haba highlighted the importance of English as a medium of instruction, saying teacher training to improve their competence in the language was critical.

Education minister Dr Vincent Biruta challenged the stakeholders to deliver analytical studies and evidence based planning to address issues at hand.

In the second Economic Development Poverty Reduction, (EDPRS II),  the education sector  is among the main priorities, as the economy moves from an agrarian based to knowledge based one. 

The new revised national curriculum is projected to start by 2016, after a training period for all actors who will drive the implementation.