I happened to be among the people who came to Rwanda immediately after the Genocide. When we came from our countries of refuge, I was in my upper primary education level and was supposed to continue to secondary level, unfortunately.

I was told to repeat the class I had previously finished just because they could not just take me on to secondary before sitting for National exams.

However I regretted having had to study from a Rwandan school, I got confused and did not know which language to use.

I had never heard French neither Kinyarwanda in class yet there was no English teacher around. I had to study the languages, do maths in Kinyarwanda, very different science, geography and history.

I totally got confused.
When exams came I was expected to do all the subjects yet had lost all the confidence especially when it came to French and Kinyarwanda. We were advised to write the exams in English and were divided between Francophone and Anglophone but his still never helped.

Though I managed to go to secondary, I lost the little English I had learnt because the English lessons were few and not emphasised since we could only speak Kinyarwanda at school, I could not learn French because I was considered an Anglophone, and life went on with neither languages. But if the teachers can be bilinguals may be students will benefit.

They will have people to speak the language they prefer or both of them at school.

Gitarama