In July 2019, World Bank reported that the pupil-to-classroom ratio (PCR) in Rwanda in 2018 averaged 82 in public schools. Primary school often exceeded 65 students and 100 students in extreme cases. In relation to the recommended 23 PCR, Rwanda’s education still face issues related to high number of students.
The report also indicated that Eastern Province has the most overcrowded schools. One of them is Groupe Scolaire Paysannat L, the most overcrowded school in Rwanda, according to the Rwanda Education Board. The school is located in Kirehe district, Eastern province. It has almost 24,000 thousand students.
G.S Paysannat L was an ordinary school with less than four thousand students before 2015 when Burundian refugees started to pour into Mahama Refugee camp. After two years, the school that could only accommodate five thousand students started to get overwhelmed. Already over 20,000 students had joined and the number continued to rise.
As its management started to get out of hand, parties concerned had to split the school into five schools G. S Paysannat L A, B, C, D, E. Each school was given its own administration and headmaster to be manageable. But all the schools share infrastructure such as kitchen, toilets and Girl’s Room.
Each of the five sub-schools has around 5,000 students and 39-42 classrooms. Classes with younger students are the most crowded with over 100 students in one room. In primary school, the number got too high that they had to make shifts with 90-100 students in each shift. Advanced level classes are the least crowded with a maximum of 65 students in one room.
Severe scarcity of resources
Vanessa Iranezera is a 14-year-old who just started secondary school. She had always been dedicated to her studies and a good performer. However, after a few months in senior one, her studying conditions are erasing her hopes for a better performance this term.
She often has to follow lectures, take notes while sitting on the floor.
Her class has over a hundred students and severe scarcity of desks. A maximum of five students share one desk and the rest have to use the floor.
"I have to arrive in class very early so that I get a seat, otherwise I spend the whole day on the floor,” she says, adding that it is too hard for her to follow studies and it has already started to negatively affect her studies.
Her condition is not only affecting her negatively but certainly her classmate as well.
Apart from desks, the school has issue of resources. Insufficient textbooks, computers and laboratories continue to worsen studying conditions. All the 24,000 students share 45 computers and have no laboratories. Emmanuel Hakizimana who manages G.S Paysannat L, B explains how threatening the problem is:
"The government can give us computers but all the rooms are occupied by classes, we only have one computer room which is far from being enough, this impinges students from the benefits of using the internet. They have to stick to books that are also not enough.”
Hakizimana also mentioned that the school failed to give any STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses due to lack of basic facilities
Students’ lower living standards
Since 90 percent of the students are refugees, it is inevitable that students living conditions affect the school operations. Many students cannot afford school uniforms and in the early time of the year, UNHCR has not helped yet.
Iranezera answered that she only has her primary uniform because she has not received her new one when she was asked why she was wearing an unbuttoned shirt and a denim skirt that has no resemblance to the school uniform.
All primary school students in the morning and afternoon shifts are given porridge while secondary students take porridge and lunch at school. The New times was told that some secondary students survive only on the school’s food.
The camp from which 90 percent of the students come from, despite its small size and densely populated territory, hosts 164,561 refugees in total, who are primarily from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Among other challenges that Hakizimana, one of the school’s headmasters, is the issue of teen pregnancies that is deeply hindering students’ education. So far, around a hundred girls gave birth in 2019 in G.S Paysannat L only.
In a bid to keep teen mothers in school, the school welcomes them and gives them time to nurse and take care of their babies along their studies.
Hakizima agrees that indeed, studying conditions at G.S Paysannat L that affects students could be made better. He suggested that with more funds and facilities, students like Iranezera will not have to lose hope in their studies.
One of priority areas of Rwanda’s National Strategy for Transformation 1 is to ensure digital literacy for all youth (16 to 30 years) by 2024.
The Government has been adding about 2,000 classrooms a year for the past nine years. With school enrollment reaching over 95 percent, but facilities remain insufficient, especially at the primary level. Rwanda currently needs more than 22,000 classrooms to phase out double shifting and reduce overcrowding as the World Bank report on Rwanda Quality Basic Education for Human Capital Development Project highlights.