A total of 2,360 teachers were yesterday rewarded with certificates in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) upon completion of a four-month course.

Solange Mukamurenzi, the National Coordinator of the Rwanda Development Gateway Group (RDGG) said that the training was part of a collective package to assist public and private institutions in ICT development and poverty alleviation through knowledge sharing.

"We have also developed a national framework of supporting institutions to develop and effectively maintain websites and a Centre for Geographical Information system and remote sensing. The centre will help in monitoring and processing geographical information to help in decision making.” 

According to Mukamurenzi, the training and other capacity building efforts are a way of setting up a firm base in the transformation of the education sector with modern technology which, according the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), is in the offing.

Dr. Mathias Harebamungu, the Permanent Secretary of MINEDUC said that soon all schools would have computers for storage of data and will be connected to the central server at the Ministry’s headquarters.

"We already have in place 30 servers which will be distributed to each district to effectively create a data bank of information about schools, students and their teachers. So the training would never have come at a better time,” he told the Sunday Times mid this week.

Education Minister, Dr. Daphrose Gahakwa, encouraged the teachers to perform the way they were taught. She also challenged them to purchase their own computers in order to follow up on the knowledge they acquired.

"You should not fear to get loans to purchase your own laptops so as not to forget the vital training you have just completed.” She pointed out that computers would help them improve their teaching techniques and develop new skills like languages.

The teachers who included four from every secondary school across the country trained on basics of computer science, application hardware maintenance and the use of internet.

The training conducted by the Rwanda Development Gateway Group (RDGG) was a result of the partnership with Washington’s Development Gateway Foundation (DGF) initiated by President Paul Kagame over five years ago.

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