Over 900 classrooms are expected to be constructed during the next School Construction Week due to be launched on Saturday.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sam Mulindwa, told The New Times yesterday that this was one of the decisions taken during the March national leadership retreat.

Mulindwa said that a count was done of the classrooms built during colonial period and they are close to 2,000, with another 3,000 that need to be rehabilitated.

Isaac Munyakazi, the Minister of State for Education in charge of Primary and Secondary Education, had told Cabinet on Tuesday that the planned activities include replacement or renovation of 992 classrooms and 1,344 latrines countywide using an "unconventional approach.”

 The activities will be completed by December 31.

 The PS said the classrooms will be constructed using unconventional approach, whereby the community will be engaged and mobilised to actively participate in the entire process.

 "We need the community to own the construction of the classrooms for their children. Local government will mobilise the community to appreciate the importance of this process. We will engage civil society, religious leaders and others to make this happen,” Mulindwa said.

 The government, he said, will see to it that necessities such as iron sheets, cement, iron bars, sand and stones are provided while community members do the actual  construction.

 "If we used the conventional approach where there is tendering we could not expect to get more than 500 classrooms done but with this unconventional approach we shall get more than double that number,” Mulindwa said, noting that a Rwf8 billion budget was set aside in the current fiscal year, for the project.

 The project, he said, was inspired by the success of the 9-Year Basic Education programme introduced in 2009 when 3,150 classrooms and 10,000 latrines were constructed.

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