The government has deployed 9,985 teachers and head teachers for primary and secondary schools in a bid to fix the existing gaps identified in all districts across the country. Speaking to The New Times, Leon Mugenzi, head of department of teacher management and development at Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB) said that despite the deployment there are still vacant positions. “In every district where we identified gaps in their schools, we have been recruiting since last year and have allocated these teachers to the schools that requested them,” he said. Another deployment of 1,687 secondary school teachers is currently ongoing to their respective schools, according to Mugenzi. He said this latest deployment will significantly fix the existing gap, adding that initially, the demand from the districts totalled 12,993 teachers and school leaders. The demand was largely driven by the additional classrooms that have been built in order to reduce congestion of students and reduce the ratio of students per teacher. Despite the fact that there was an initial plan to decongest classrooms in primary and secondary schools, this was accelerated following the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, to ensure students are spaced enough to avoid contagion. The latest deployment of more teachers, Mugenzi said will allow them to be able to easily monitor the students’ performance and follow their daily progress. Mugenzi told The New Times that the gaps were also caused by some teachers who leave for other jobs, those who retire, ones that are dismissed for different reasons, and others who feel sick and can no longer teach. Commenting on the ones who were deployed but didn’t report to their respective schools, he said that this happens due to different reasons such as those who fall sick while others shun schools that are located far away from their residence among other reasons. He said that such issues are analysed on a case by case basis to come up with an appropriate solution.
