Editor,

According to recent reports, the Ministry of Education plans to recruit 4,000 secondary school English language teachers as part of its strategy to be at par with its East African neighbours.

Our country has had a French speaking background and I hope the strategy would enable Rwandan children to catch up with the rest of the region and equally compete for job opportunities in within the EAC bloc. 

However, I wish to caution the ministry to tread carefully during the recruitment exercise and employ only competent teachers.

We have had cases of teachers who came to Rwanda with forged academic papers. Several of them have been arrested and convicted but after they had already poisoned our children.

This means that these teachers were simply recruited before their academic papers were verified. The ministry should put in place a clear and transparent mechanism to avoid the recurrence of such a situation.

Timothy Kanamugire
Rwamagana