The government of Rwanda in partnership with the British Council have emphasised their commitment to promote the development of English language in the country.

This was revealed yesterday by the Education Minister Dr. Charles Murigande and Martin Davidson the CEO of the British Council, during the English for Development in Africa forum in Kigali.

The two-day meeting brought together officials from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa and Tanzania and aims at providing an opportunity for top policy makers across Africa to share best practices and set an agenda for collaboration on English to achieve MDGs by raising the quality of education.

Addressing the press yesterday, Murigande alongside British Council officials, said that the government is currently investing a lot in the development of English language in schools.

"For the last two years we have been collaborating with the council to train our teacher’s English language and avail an opportunity to learn English and this has played a great role in promoting the use of English in schools,” Muligande said.

He explained that, Rwanda has an ambition of becoming a knowledge based economy and the country cannot achieve this without the proficiency of English language since it is the language of science, business and the diplomacy.

"We are convinced that there is no way the Rwandan children will spend nine or twelve years learning English and fail to express themselves in the language at a very acceptable level,” the Minister added.

Muligande pointed out that the Government is running a five-week intensive English training for the 50,000 teachers both in primary and secondary.

"We are exploring the possibility of purchasing solar Radios on which we can put English material on MP3 devices that is contained in the radio so that teachers can continuously learn English without going to class,” the Minister said.

According to Davidson, if the development is going to take place comprehensively then English needs to become a tool for individuals at all levels across the society.

"We are very proud of working with Rwanda for the last two years to make reality Rwanda’s ambitions of using the English language as a medium of instruction,” he said.
"We are very much committed to continue supporting the development of the language in the country by training the teachers.”

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