UNICEF Rwanda and Hempel Foundation, on November 11, officially launched a partnership aimed at accelerating improvements in foundational learning in Rwanda.

The launch took place on the first day of the Africa Foundational Learning Exchange (FLEX) 2024, the largest country-to-country peer learning and knowledge exchange platform on African education.

The three-year partnership, initiated in September this year, seeks to model effective strategies for ensuring that all children achieve expected foundational literacy and numeracy.

Speaking on the importance of foundational learning, Juliana Lindsey, UNICEF Rwanda Representative, said, "Foundational skills are the absolute basis of children learning to read, write, do arithmetic and also develop social skills.”

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She noted that children who do not acquire foundational skills are more likely to repeat grades and have an increased risk of dropping out of school.

Echoing her sentiments, Anders Holm, Executive Director, Hempel Foundation, said that high repetition rates are not only detrimental to children, they are costly to governments.

"In many parts of the world, education poverty is closely linked to high repetition rates,” Holm said, adding that a recent study by UNICEF estimated that 20 per cent of the education budget in the 2021/2022 FY in Rwanda was spent on students who were repeating grades or who dropped out.

The programme targets 150 primary schools in five districts in Rwanda and will equip 1,500 teachers with effective teaching skills and tools needed to effectively enable children to progressively achieve grade appropriate learning competencies, including through ongoing remedial learning support to children who are lagging behind.

The programme will directly reach 75,000 children, with an equal representation of girls and boys, and indirectly impact an additional 150,000 children.

According to Emmanuel Murenzi, Country Director at Inspire, Educate and Empower (IEE) Rwanda, the programme will be implemented in schools with the highest repetition rates.

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"We worked with the National Examination and School Inspection Authority (NESA) to identify schools in terms of performance, infrastructure and the capacity of the teachers,” Murenzi said, adding that the programme will be intentional to offer interventions that are specific to the needs of the students.

Murenzi also noted that the programme will have formative as opposed to summative assessments, where teachers will have tools to conduct continuous evaluations to determine the learners’ level of comprehension.

According to Charles Avelino, Chief of Education at UNICEF, there are mechanisms to measure progress and impact of the programme throughout the three years of implementation.

"Progress will be measured through operational research which includes implementation context, fidelity, impact, value for money and sustainability, Avelino said.

The programme will cost a total of $3.5 million, with $2.1 million from Hempel Foundation.