About 3,060 teachers from primary and secondary schools, on Tuesday, started a 10-day training in the new competency-based curriculum countrywide. 

The training is intended to equip teachers with knowledge about the curriculum so that they can train other teachers in various schools across the country in a bid to facilitate effective implementation.

The new curriculum is due for implementation effective the new school term in January.

The teachers being trained in all subjects of study will train others in the November holiday.

Antoine Mutsinzi, the in-charge of training at Rwanda Education Board (REB), said 92 teachers who trained in July are conducting the training.

The same trainers were also involved in the curriculum review process.

Those being trained will, in turn, train other teachers at the sector and school levels.

"We have adopted a cascade approach whereby a higher level teacher would train in lower ranks. It is understandable that 10 days are not enough. The process will, therefore, help us train them,” Mutsinzi said.

The new curriculum is competency-based compared to the outdated one which emphasised accumulation of knowledge.

The whole pedagogical system will be learner-centred and the teacher will be acting as a facilitator in the process, which will allow effective knowledge acquisition and provision as well as put an end to the cramming for marks culture.

Mutsinzi said the old curriculum did not focus on skills or how to use knowledge in daily life.

"With the outgoing curriculum, a student could have knowledge but the implementation of such knowledge in the real world often escaped them.

"For instance, a person who studied physics could have a plethora of theoretical knowledge, but cannot make a simple circuit or is unable to repair their own radio for that matter,” Mutsinzi said.

He explained that the new curriculum is intended to move beyond a system where a teacher provides too much knowledge to a student who is only a passive recipient, and rather help learners develop their capacity through involving them in the learning process.

"It is that transformation this the new curriculum is bringing,” he said.

Composition

Joseph Rutakamize, the director of science unit in the curriculum department at REB and the coordinator Nyanza training site at Ecole des Sciences Saint Louis de Mont Fort Nyanza, said teachers need training in the new curriculum as it has new features that they have to understand for effective implementation.

"The curriculum has three main principles that a student has to acquire; knowledge, skills, and attitude and values, so that they acquire a comprehensive education,” Rutakamize said.

Edgard Kacu, a teacher from Groupe Scolaire Kayumbu in Kamonyi District, who is one of the trainees, said they were already seeing remarkabble difference in the old and the new curricula.

The teachers suggested that for the new curriculum to be effectively implemented, there is a need for enough teaching materials.

The new curriculum will be implemented in phases to allow systematic adoption, with the process expected to be complete in 2018.

Next year, the curriculum will be rolled out in Primary One and Four, and Senior One and Four; in 2017, Primary Two and Five and Senior Two and Five, and in the final year in 2018, Primary Three and Six as well as Senior Three and Six.

The new curriculum also focuses on issues related to development programmes and crosscutting issues such as genocide and environmental degradation to ensure that students have adequate knowledge of the subjects and are able to prevent them.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw