A financing amount of US$9.72 million from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) has greatly supported Rwanda’s Covid-19 Education Response, according to beneficiaries. 

"There’s nothing more rewarding for teachers than seeing their students following classes with interest and full attention” said Eugenie Mukamana a teacher at Groupe Scholaire Murambi.  

She puts this to the impact of school feeding program which, not only contributed to the children’s attention in class, curbed the dropout rates, but also saved the time wasted in their running home for lunch and back.  

Provided as an additional financing to the World Bank financed Rwanda Quality Basic Education for Human Capital Development Project (RQBEP) that aims to improve teacher competency, and student retention and learning in basic education, the GPE grant supported emergency response by ensuring students continue learning during the lockdown and to support the country’s preparation to reopen schools once the virus is contained. 

Implemented for a period spanning 2 years, the project aimed at accelerating the activities hampered by the impacts of the pandemic by providing broadcasted learning services for students during the lockdown, scholastic materials to vulnerable students and supporting the school feeding program when schools reopened. 

For Yampaye Mediatrice, a parent residing Rulindo district, the program was a lifesaver: "I am in the Ubudehe first category and was greatly affected by the impacts of the pandemic, I could not afford to pay lunch at school and get basic scholastic materials for my children, and this program was more substantial to my child education progress” she said. 

Among some of its impacts for the continuation of learning, the project helped record 2,996 lessons including 139 podcasts for nursery school, 863 for primary schools whereas 1,994 science and humanities videos lesson were recorded. Throughout the project implementation period, a total of 2,996 lessons were recorded and 785 lessons were aired.

Highlighting the impacts of the GPE support through the Rwanda Quality Basic Education project, Gaspard Twagirayezu, the Minister of State in Charge of Primary and Secondary Education in the Ministry of Education described the project as having been a very instrumental tool in enhancing the quality of education. 

"When schools were closed, we had to make sure that learning did not stop. With the help of the fund, we developed content for remote learning including on Radio, TV, and Internet. The project also contributed to building washing stations across different schools to ensure that students can wash their hands as often as possible, it also supported back-to-school campaigns and school feeding programs.” he noted. 

The project also facilitated the construction of 1,099 disability inclusive group hand washing stations, provided scholastic materials to 807,694 students from 1,084 schools, and served meals to about 808,000 children in 979 schools through school feeding programme for initial three months on school reopening. 

The complementary support through the other activities of the RQBEP supported the construction of gender segregated and inclusive school toilets at scale which further strengthened the quality Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) provision in the schools to support safe re-entry.

Other achievements include the airing of 48 edutainment episodes produced in-house at REB, printing, and distribution of 29,000 Teaching Guides for new teachers, and training of 3,000 on 4 Continuous Professional Courses.

A worker distributes milk to the children while having  lunch. / Craish Bahizi

Gaspard Twagirayezu, the Minister of State in charge of Primary and Secondary Education. / Craish Bahizi