The high number of primary and secondary schools teachers dodging English language training has been cited as one of the handicaps of the programme that seeks to train over 40,000 tutors in the language.

This was revealed to The New Times Thursday by an official of the Ministry of Education who sought anonymity
According to the Ministry, the teachers are trained with the help of 607 trainers from Uganda, Kenya and a few more from Rwanda.

Teachers undergoing training are both primary and secondary school teachers and the trainings are conducted at the sector level.

The trainings will be conducted in two phases.
The first phase began November 30 and will end December 24, in the Northern, Western and Southern Provinces.
The second phase will commence January 4 up to 29, 2010 in the Eastern Province and Kigali City.

Speaking at the official launch of the programme, State Minister in charge of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr.Mathias Harebamungu, encouraged the teachers to learn with passion.

"You should increase your efforts in learning what you are being taught and also endeavour to use the skills in providing qualitaty education to the children of Rwanda,” said Harebamungu.

Some of the challenges that were cited in the programme are the dodging of training by some teachers, mixed levels of English proficiency for trainees and the lack of experience in the large scale training, especially in the organization, supervision and material production.

The Minister warned teachers who dodge the training programme that they were likely to be discontinued from the teaching profession if they don’t attend the trainings.

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