Teachers need to embrace electronic teaching aids for sustainable results, Olivier Rwamukwaya, the state minister in charge of primary and secondary education, has said. The minister was this week visiting a Plan International Rwanda project that provides teachers with iPod run teaching demonstration videos in Gashora Sector, Bugesera District in Eastern Province. “Some of the gadgets do not only give tips on the ideal teaching model, but also help with illustration, leaving the teacher with only the supervisory role during classes,” Rwamukwaya said. He expressed disappointment that many schools have the teaching aids, but don’t exploit them optimally. Rwamukwaya added that to strengthen similar projects like the One Laptop Per Child programme, plan is underway to construct an assembling plant for the laptops in the country. The plant, he added, would produce 150,000 laptops per year. The Plan-Rwanda project, “Teacher Self Learning Academy (TSLA),” in Gashora runs in four schools with about 24 teachers of Primary Five and Six benefiting. The project, which caters for the English and Science subjects, has each of the teachers equipped with the gadget (iPod) containing 25 teaching demonstration videos, a dictionary, science syllabus, and a downloading application for books. “We take time to watch these videos that feature expert teachers, and then try to emulate some of the teaching methods,” said Bosco Tuyishime, an English teacher at GS Mwendo, Gashora. Tuyishime added that teachers in each school meet at least once a week to share lessons learnt from the iPod as part of efforts to master its effective use. Tuyishime said ever since the system was introduced about a year ago at his school, his English vocabulary has improved significanly. “The iPod also has a camera, so in case I want to show my science class a strange weed, it’s a matter of taking a picture of it, and presenting it,” he added. The TSLA project, which started in January, last year, also runs in Nyaruguru District in Southern Province, with 32 schools countrywide currently benefiting from it. Peter Van Dommelen, the Plan-Rwanda country director, expressed optimism that the two-year project, worth $1 million, will expand to other districts in the near future.
