The Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) has announced plans to invest Rwf10 billion to scale up in-house production of textbooks annually, starting this fiscal year. Education is one of the sectors that won big from the 2022/2023 national budget, as it had Rwf573.3 billion allocated to it. This money will be invested in various educational activities aimed at improving its quality, among which is strengthening the programme of locally producing textbooks to use in schools in the country. For this, the ministry anticipates that at least Rwf10 billion will be spent every year, beginning the current fiscal year that started in July 2022. According to the national budget, for this fiscal year, this task had been allocated Rwf5bn under ordinary budget but received an equal amount in additional funding to expedite the process, making it Rwf10bn. The textbooks that will be produced this year include those for Mathematics, Kinyarwanda, English, French, Biology, Technology, History, Environmental Science, Swahili, Religion, Education, Music, Arts and Crafts, among others. They will cover different levels, from kindergartens all the way to secondary school. Speaking to The New Times, Gaspard Twagirayezu, the state minister for primary and secondary education said that since the local production of textbooks was introduced five years ago, they have made significant progress. Since November 2017 when the programme was launched, he said that a total of 14,187,817 textbooks have been produced in Rwanda. “This in-house book production will capitalise on Rwandan resources by using excellent teachers at all levels including universities to develop high quality textbooks, as well as books that reflect the Rwandan context and aligned with Rwandan culture.” he said Meanwhile, more than Rwf249 billion of the education budget will go towards salaries of teachers and other employees who work in the education sector, as well as implementing important projects in the education sector. According to the Ministry of Education, among the projects they plan are those aimed at increasing the quality of education through capacity building of teachers, schools and students. Equipping schools with ICT equipment has been allocated over Rwf6.4 billion, and it is planned that small computers (tablets) will be given to at least 4,000 teachers. Twagirayezu added that technology is aimed at improving the quality of education, where the teacher will be able to give lessons based on the manual that is already installed in the tablets. The ministry is set to deliver these materials to the schools in time for them to be in use at the beginning of the school year 2022/23 which is set to kick off on September 26, 2022.
