Science students have been urged to be more innovative to make new discoveries that would further the country’s development.

The call was made by Marie-Christine Gasingirwa, the Director General for science, technology and research at the Ministry of Education, on Monday, during a ceremony to award the best projects in this year’s secondary school science competitions.

Gasingirwa said Rwanda pushes for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects because the country believes in the future of its people in and in their capacity to transform the nation through adding value to  raw materials.

"When we are enabled to think critically, to analyse and solve problems, it creates a link between what we learnt theoretically. The science you learn is supposed to respond to the communities’ challenges,” she said.

She urged the students to keep learning and innovating in order to meet the demands of a dynamic science and technology field.

 "Learning is like feeding, the  knowledge you had previously might not be that marketable today, that’s why we need to be innovative,” she added.

 The competitions were organised by Rwanda Education Board and sponsored by Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), with daily supervision of the projects conducted by Korean volunteers.

‘‘We always say we learn to live but also we live to learn better, because you cannot bring about innovation unless you think out of the box about what you meet every day,’’ Gasingirwa said.

"You must start with the fundamental laws by asking yourself ‘what if I add this? what is the effect? can it be more useful? can it be more marketable? does it solve the problem?’’

The KOICA Country Director, Hyeong Lae Cho, said the objective behind the competitions is to instill into students creativity and innovation spirit.

Hyeong observed that, without science, no prosperity may be attained in the future.

"Your interests in science and effective use of acquired skills will enable you to deliver millions of solutions to problems around you,” he told the students.

Students speak

 Hervais Ngabo from Petit Seminaire Kabgayi, whose school  project emerged the best, said they thought of an idea that could contribute to the education sector.

"We made a projector that we called ‘projector for education’, the idea came when we thought of something that may lead to development of our country, we saw that one of the pillars of the country’s development is a good education system, that’s why we tried to make this projector to be used in classrooms,” he said.

He explained that it is a simple projector that is made of a torch, a lance system, and glass filled with water.

Ngabo said that, if financed, their aim is it to expand the project to all schools across the country.

Yvonne Uwemeyimana, from Fawe Girls School in Kigali who emerged the second best performer in Chemistry subject, told The New Times that her interest in Chemistry was not be limited  to competitions or in the classroom but she targets to study it at  University as well as apply it in  everyday life.

"There are some problems that the country faces and we believe that, through chemistry, we can come up with solutions. For example,  use of biogas and search for other sources of fuel and energy, those are things that could contribute significantly to the development of our country and well-being of the population,” she said.

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