District and sector education officers (DEOs and SEOs), yesterday, received laptops donated by the United Nations Children’s Education Fund (Unicef) to help with data storage, retrieval and ease communication challenges.

The handover took place at the University of Rwanda’s College of Education and was attended by the State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Olivier Rwamukwaya, the Education ministry Permanent Secretary, Dr Celestin Ntivuguruzwa, and Ted Maly, the Unicef country representative, among others.

Rwamukwaya thanked Unicef for the donation and said officials in some parts of the country like Bugesera District have already received the laptops.

He said education officers from all 416 sectors of the country will receive laptops.

"These laptops will help us communicate effectively with education officers around the country. We have finished piloting a web-based system to communicate with them because waiting for reports slows down the process of providing quality education and assessing work conducted by the officials,” he said.

The minister said Unicef has previously helped them to construct teacher training colleges, schools, early childhood education centers and revision of school curricula.

He urged officials to put the laptops to good use in order to deliver on their work.

Dr Ntivuguruzwa said the laptops, despite being handed to individuals, are government property and should be handed back when a user’s time in office expires.

He said the laptops will help officials to work faster, effectively and contribute toward building of an ICT-based education system.

"The officials will train teachers on how to use laptops as a tool for teaching but, most importantly, they will help to assess the quality of education in schools as well as monitor accurate student’s data, which has previously been registered on forms that led to creation of ‘ghost’ students. DEOs and SEOs should work together to improve the quality of teaching methods in schools,” he said.

Ntivuguruzwa said not all district officials will get laptops immediately but that Government was working hard to ensure that all officials get them.

He added that, at the moment, they will use modems but by 2018, all schools in the country will be connected to the Internet.

Unicef’s Maly said Rwanda is improving and the agency will partner with the Ministry of Education to provide quality education.

"It’s a very important initiative and we hope that these laptops will increase timely and more efficient work. The laptops will help ease access to information that can improve the quality of teaching skills,” he said.

Olive Mukandahiro, the SEO in Rwezamenyo in Nyarugenge District, said the gadgets will help them to monitor students’ attendance in schools and to also eliminate the issue of ‘ghost’ students.

She said although some places are yet to be connected to the Internet, officials can use modems because the biggest challenge was to get laptops.

"These laptops will ensure timely sharing of information, solve the issue of duplication of student names by using unique student numbers. This will speed up the way we work,” she said.

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