In a move to enhance early childhood education, Rwanda has set an ambitious target to double pre-primary enrolment from the current 35 per cent to 65 per cent by 2029.

This initiative aligns with the National Strategy for Transformation 2 (NST2) reflecting the government’s commitment to laying a strong educational foundation for the youngest learners and ensuring that children get a head start on their academic journey.

The previous goal fell short by 10 per cent, with the government achieving only 35 per cent of the targeted 45 per cent in the fiscal year 2023-2024, which the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) says was mainly hindered by low engagements of parents and budget limitations in building new schools.

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"The main challenge was the low sensitization and collaboration of parents to enroll their children aged three to five years in formal pre-primary education but also limited number of classrooms for pre-primary education due to the budget constraints for school construction,” said Christophe Nsengiyaremye, the Director General in charge of sector planning, monitoring and evaluation at the ministry.

Currently, Rwanda has 4,051 schools with pre-primary level, 1,243 of them are public schools, 1,795 are government-subsidised schools, and 1,013 are private.

In response to the challenges that hindered the previous target, Nsengiyaremye said they are currently sensitizing parents to register their children aged three to five years in formal pre-primary education, mobilising resources for construction of classrooms for pre-primary education on existing schools but also working with the National Child Development Agency (NCDA) to use available Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers.

They are also enhancing the quality of teaching at all levels of education, including recruitment of more qualified teachers, ensure continuous professional development for teachers, and provision of teaching and learning materials for basic education.

Aligning with the NST2 goal five to achieve a solid foundation for education, the Ministry of Education stated that it is committed to improve inclusive access for formal pre-primary education by accelerating modern school construction and equipment, as well as increasing public-private partnerships in school infrastructure development.

Priority will be given to five-year-old children to access organised pre-primary education and improve the quality of early childhood development education offerings for all children, among others, Nsengiyaremye said.

For the fiscal year 2024-2025, the government allocated more than Rwf38 billion for the pre-primary budget out of over Rwf792 billion earmarked for the entire education sector, according to the ministry.

The government seeks to increase pre-primary staff by recruiting 2,000 more teachers in the fiscal year 2024-2025, adding to the 9,280 personnel available in the year 2023-2024 in public, government-subsidised and private schools.

Anita Umukundwa, a pre-primary school teacher at G.S Kabare in Rwamagana District, emphasized that teaching materials are something very essential thing to consider in 2024-2025 academic year’s budget for pre-primary schools.

"The government should allocate more funds towards teaching materials, particularly those needed for subjects like mathematics and arts. This will alleviate the burden on teachers who currently have to search for these resources in their surroundings.”

Additionally, she highlighted the need for increasing training opportunities for pre-primary school educators to improve educational outcomes.

Currently, all teachers for pre-primary in public and government-aided schools are on government payroll, apart from caregivers in early childhood development centers.

The recruitment trend for pre-primary school teachers reveals that the government managed to recruit 2,587 in public schools and 3,795 in government-subsidised schools in the year 2022-2023, from 706 and 21,103, respectively, in 2017.

In the education sector, it is noted, gender distribution among teachers varies significantly across different levels.

In pre-primary education women dominate with 81.8 per cent over 18.2 per cent of males, "mainly because of few numbers of female teachers who are upgrading their levels of education due to different social raisons,” Nsengiyaremye noted.

In the recent past, there was cooperation between public and faith-based organisations to increase the number of schools with pre-primary level, which Nsengiyaremye said was valuable.

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"Cooperation with faith-based organisations resulted in the increased number of schools with pre-primary education level from 1,535 schools in 2017 to 1,968 schools in 2022-2023,” he said.

Other parties that contributed to the increase of pre-primary schools include individuals or NGOs that contributed 615 schools in 2022-2023 from 254 schools in 2017, and parents’ associations with 223 schools in 2022-2023.