GIKONDO - Students and staff of the School of Finance and Banking (SFB), over the weekend threw their weight behind the Nine-Year Basic Education programme, by building classrooms for students on the programme.

According to the Executive Secretary of Kigarama sector in Kicukiro district, Jean Bosco Kaboyi, the labour provided by the students amounted to over Rwf2 million.

The students and staff members of SFB helped build a structure at Groupe Scolaire de Kigarama.

Lack of infrastructure has been cited by the Ministry of Education as the major stumbling block to the programme that is set to kick off with the next academic year in January 2010.

"The government introduced this programme to ensure that every Rwandan child gets a chance to at least study in the first nine years, but this programme met a number of challenges central among them being lack of infrastructure in schools,” explained Kaboyi.

"This meant that we had to organize and find within ourselves ways of solving these problems which is why today, students from SFB are here to help us put up the classrooms at this school and we are happy to have their help as neighbours.”

Speaking to The New Times, SFB guild president Mucyo Mulinzi, said that they had come to the school to help the future intellectuals have a good foundation and show their support to government policies like the Nine-Year Basic Education programme.

"As students, we don’t have to think about our studies alone, we also have to participate in developmental activities such as these and help our young brothers and sisters who want to be where we are today have a good foundation,” he said.

He added that they plan to create a permanent partnership with the primary school so that they can help them whenever the need arises.

Speaking after the exercise of leveling the ground where the four classrooms will be built, the Vice Rector in charge of finance Rogers Muragije, said that they were not going to stop at what they had done, but would also help financially to make sure that the classrooms are completed by the beginning of the next academic year.

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