Kigali Institute of Education (K.I.E.) opened its doors in 1999, a few years after the horrible 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Its prime aim is to produce qualified teachers to serve the nation. The genocide claimed many qualified Rwandans in various disciplines; education was one of the affected sectors.

KIE embarked on its mission with the seriousness it deserved. Starting off on a modest number of enrolments, the institute has since grown to leaps and bounds with numbers reaching thousands. Rwanda now boasts of many well trained teachers serving across the country. They have greatly filled the gap that was left by the killings during the genocide.

The most important thing in training teachers is not only meeting academic standards, but also to give the society existential skills.

"Ours is not only plain academics. The philosophy behind our motto, ‘education for excellence’ encompasses a lot of things among which is bringing out a wholesome individual-one who is able to transform society,” remarks Prof. George K. Njoroge, the K.I.E Rector.

It is in the same line that the Institute pushed its tentacles around the country to touch even the remotest parts of the country. K.I.E started what is popularly known as Distance Education Program (DTP). There are centres for distance training in all districts of Rwanda.

In these centres, teachers who are in active service get the opportunity to train and qualify as teachers. This is of paramount importance as far as developing human resources.
For any nation to develop it must have a skilled human resource, KIE offers exactly that through training teachers.

"Teachers are the basis of any human development-engineers; doctors, etc are products of teachers. KIE is therefore the basis of cementing the gains of development through teacher training. We are therefore, as a matter of fact, the most important institution in the country,” remarks Prof. George K. Njoroge.

"A country is as good as its teachers-they can build or destroy a country. This explains why we are giving students requisite skills to inculcate positive changes in Rwanda. Teachers are actually supposed to be agents of change. Ours therefore aims at creating critical thinkers-facilitators of learning rather than domineering individuals,” he adds.

This is however a very heavy task that demands the hand of other partners and the government in general. How is K.I.E. ready to embrace the new idea of embracing English as the  language of instruction in Rwanda? Rwanda recently advised all schools to start preparing schools to teach all subjects in English.

French was the language of instruction in Rwandan schools for ages due to the colonial influence. The Institute says that with effect from this year, it’s ready to start off the exclusive use of English.

"There is no vague situation in this transition from French to English as a language of instruction as some people would like to put it. Students doing the French language will continue doing so in order to teach in schools. You know students will continue learning French as a language. We have teachers who actually do not have a rich English background. We have arranged their special English training,” says Dr. James Vuningoma, Vice Rector KIE.

The issue of language touches all spheres of life; students themselves tend to have different English backgrounds. This could be cumbersome when promoting learners from one level to another. The official, however, tends to wash away such worries when he asserts thus:

"Learners at level one will do a compulsory non credible English course. We of course expect the students to perform differently depending on their backgrounds. We shall sieve them accordingly so that when they move to level two, the slow learners continue remedial courses. We need a kind of progressive follow up to cater for the weak”.

All these initiatives are so meaningful only if the people/learners are willing to accommodate them. This prompted us to go a mile further and ask the educationist Prof. George K. Njorege, to tell us the way forward.

"It is a question of commitment and believing in ourselves. It is further an issue of attitude. We must address the issue of attitude to be able to transcend the dichotomy that exists between the so called Anglophone and Francophone. As matter of fact, English is the language of globalisation and technology. There is therefore no time to waste. Rwanda is gearing towards a knowledge based economy-English is the language of such economy,” he emphasises.

It is adapt or die kind of situation. The most promising thing moreover is that even the teachers themselves are ready to embrace the outright use of English.

"I do not have any problem with the English language, though I am a Franco-phone. I did most of my subjects in the English language during my undergraduate degree course and later on did a post graduate course in English,” says Innocent Muhire, a teacher at KIE.

Though there are other teachers who were not privileged to learn English like Muhire, on average all teachers who were trained by KIE have strong English backgrounds. Remember KIE, trains teachers beyond those at the campus (DTP).

"The teaching modules that were in French have now been properly translated into English to be used by students under the DTP program. We have over 1294 distance education students teaching in secondary schools. We are helping them to undergo the changes smoothly by offering them translated modules,” says Dr. James Vuningoma.

It is further encouraging to learn that the Institute has moved a step further to help other non-academic institutions to learn English for their official use.

"We have an outreach to the country program. We have trained Social Security workers, the staff of Gasabo district and are set to continue training more than 400 Rwanda Revenue staff in English. We actually encourage many institutions to come to us for such help. We at the same time calling on other institutions with the capacity like ours to start similar programs,” remarks Vuningoma.

"The teaching of languages however is so demanding in terms of human resources. We were bothered by how the institute is going to realise its great mission of teaching English across the country. There is need for language laboratories, English teachers, books etc. All these seem to be prepared though not at the levels one would wish to have,”he added.

"We intend (by next year) to equip every class with a computer, power point. The overall objective is to narrow the student- computer ratio. We however have 500 computers at the disposal of students up to mid-night,” says Prof. George K. Njoroge.

In fact computers and the need to go ICT are not limited to teachers. Some old teachers were not privileged to undergo such training yet they are the highly learned in all higher institutions of learning in developing countries and in Rwanda particularly. To do away with such paradox, a special program to train them in ICT is underway.

In the same line there has been a great problem of teachers who find themselves in the job without important teaching skills. To teach in a University you need to have a Masters Degree or a PhD.

The true assumption is that for one to go to that level he will have excelled in his or her area of specialisation and therefore be a good teacher. Nonetheless, such teachers do not always fit well in the teaching and learning environment due to lack of basic teaching skills.

It is further dissatisfying when they are in a higher institution of learning that specialises in producing teachers or teachers of teachers. This worry will nevertheless, be addressed in KIE by next year.

"We shall be offering one year post graduate diploma course in teaching and learning. It is expected to benefit our lecturers who never studied education/teaching skills,” says Dr. James Vuningoma.

"We have to help all individuals willing to study since we are more of a specialised institution. We are, for instance, the only institution that offers a degree in ICT with education,” he adds.

KIE is also expected to make a land mark in development by forging a more meaningful basic education. Rwanda needs a more vibrant basic education with qualified teachers at primary school level.

We need to; improve the quality of basic education; reorient existing education programmes to address sustainable development; develop public awareness and understanding; and provide training for all sectors of private and civil society.

"If you moved from top to down, you would understand what KIE actually is doing to date. We are pushing so hard so fast. You have KIE on top doing the training of secondary and college teachers, Kavumu and Rukara Teacher training colleges doing the training of primary teachers. This is a smart chain. We actually, intend to have all teachers right from Kindergarten trained to acquire degrees in education. This is when we shall boast of quality education. The whole chain must be streamlined-it is our objective and challenge that we confront it by the horns,” says a seemingly convinced, KIE vice Rector Academic.

The cause/aim of KIE as a whole cannot be overemphasised. Education promotes Sustainable Development and is also a vision that seeks to empower people to assume responsibility for creating a sustainable future. This is what a post genocide society like Rwanda needs.

Contact: mugitoni@yahoo.com