Enhancing quality of teacher training for technical and vocational education will promote and sustain socio-economic development of the country.

Choongsik Han, the senior vice president of Korea International Corporation Agency (KOICA), made the remarks yesterday during the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a technical teacher training institute at the Integrated Polytechnic Centre (IPRC) Kigali inKicukiro District.

The construction is part of a partnership between the Government of Rwanda and KOICA.

"Since the Government of Rwanda recognises that TVET is critical in promoting investment, increasing equitable access and quality in education sectors would be an uphill task without access to the required skills,” Choongsik said.

He said after construction of the institute, more teachers and teacher trainees of technical and vocational education at all levels will help in upgrading the quality of content that is delivered to the students.

"Teachers, especially student teachers, will be trained in pedagogical skills, cross-cutting skills, construction skills and other areas hence the end product will be of high quality capable of transferring this to other students,” Choongsik added.  

Facilitating TVET trainers

About Rwf3.6 billion is to be spent on construction of three storey buildings that will accommodate about 60 students per session and more than 300 teachers annually within the main building and dormitory.

Albert Nsengiyumva, the state minister in charge of TVET, commended the efforts by the Korean government in providing extensive support for promoting technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and other activities within the country.

"We have seen Korea’s contribution in many areas such as agriculture sector transformation, community development, capacity building and construction such as the support that was delivered to the faculty of geology at the University of Rwanda,” Nsengiyumva said.

The minister said skills from those disciplines can easily be passed on to help more Rwandans to fast-track development.

He said teacher trainers are  the engine for vocational education.

"Before even the construction takes place, experts from South Korea have been engaging with us to come up with the appropriate system that we are going to use to make the building more useful and relevant to all people,” Nsengiyumva added.

Eng. Diogene Mulindahabi, the principal of IPRC-Kigali, lauded different partners for making it possible to set up facilities that boost TVET programmes.

"This cannot be successful without the efforts of the different key partners and with this we shall continue realising remarkable results not only in Rwanda but in the entire East Africa,” Mulindahabi said.