On a hot Friday afternoon, we arrived at King David Academy, located in Kanombe, Nyarugunga sector, some minutes after 3pm. I had an appointment with the founder of the school, Annet Mutamuriza, and due to traffic, we delayed and Mutamuriza had already entered an urgent meeting. She had, however, asked some of the staff to take us around the school. I was determined to sit down with her, 15 years after our first interview, and talk about her impressive journey in education.
I first met her in 2007; graceful and down to earth. As soon as she sat down, it was clear that she’d remained graceful and down to earth all these years, as she apologised for the delay and after a short while, recalled our first interview.
"My journey in the education sector is a very long story. God called me to be a teacher,” she says, adding that when the calling came, she was excited by the prospects.
Her calling was affirmed by Pastor Charles Karanja from Kenya who revealed to her during a mission to Rwanda that God showed him that she would be a teacher.
"I could not believe it because it was not in my plan, but from that day on, that is when I started the journey. I went to some places around Remera, that is where I started the school in 1996,” she says, adding that it is then that she started preaching the gospel of education.
She started with 17 girls whom she taught different subjects including accounting, office practice, business management, ICT and other courses which were on demand at the time.
Things were not as hard as they are today. ICT meant studying word, excel, lotus courses and other simple business courses, after which they would get certificates in three or six months.
When things started picking up, at the time, people who had an interest in education, particularly those who were interested in starting schools, were called for a meeting by the Ministry of Education, which was addressed by President Paul Kagame, who at the time was the Vice President.
The participants in the meeting at Notre Dame de Cîteaux were informed of the gap in education the country needed to address and they were encouraged to go out and start.
"He (Kagame) told us to start the way we were and that is how our school started. In 2000 we started construction here and the school grew just like that,” she says.
Ending up in the education sector is not something she planned and to this day, she believes it is God’s calling because initially when she started, her plan was to offer spiritual courses and impact the lives of young people.
"When I started it in 1996, the gospel was the main reason behind starting the school and then I combined teaching them the gospel and the subjects that are good to teach,” she says.
Educating girls
Having studied in a girl’s school, Mutamuriza’s vision was to start something that improved the education of girls, with the numbers at the time still very low.
"I could not immediately think about boys. I thought about girls and that is where I could focus my training,” she recalls.
Mutamuriza set out to start the school at a time when things were not easy and if it wasn’t for the passion and love for teaching, she would have easily diverted to something else.
"It takes heart, and love that you have for children, because a school is not like any other business. You must have passion for what you’re doing,” Mutamuriza says, adding that because it was a calling, she could feel the passion for the children she was teaching.