Smartness is the key to performance

For quite sometime, I have been watching school going children here in Kigali and across the country and I have come to believe something is lacking, and perhaps this is the major reason academic performance is still below par, despite all government efforts. As the country celebrates 15 years of liberation and at the same time ventures into regional integration, there are some things we need to learn from neighbouring countries in order to keep at pace with development. Much as education in Rwanda has registered some tremendous milestones for the last 15 years, the Nine Year Basic Education Plan, use of English language, a new curriculum, grading system, to mention but a few, there is still a long way to go in regard to smartness and time keeping. I really think it’s high time the Ministry of Education moved to set up new rules for both Primary and secondary schools regarding smartness (uniform and general cleanliness) and time keeping. If you look around Kigali, you will notice a group of idle pupils idly walking the roads at around 10am, while young boys find places to play football at the time when they are supposed to be in class. No one cares to ask a group of young girls you find walking, carrying their bags at around 11am, with their uniform shirts, unbuttoned revealing their designer tops inside. The boys wear the trousers hanging low, they don’t tuck their shirts in and you will in most cases find them wearing their shirts on top of gangster T-shirts with images of American rappers. The girls wear open sandals to school, while the boys prefer fancy sneakers. Girls style their hair in all sorts of shape while the lucky ones manage to have theirs ‘worked’ in the saloon. It should be noted that strict codes of hygiene, uniformity and cleanliness are a source of discipline and smartness in class. A student who knows that they will be punished for flouting uniform rules will surely have their uniforms, even when it is one piece, washed and neatly pressed before they go to school. If the Ministry emphasised this, I am sure schools would easily implement the rules. Personally I don’t think it’s a hard task. Luckily enough, majority of the schools in the country wear the same colours. It would be very easy for the schools to administer strict rules on smartness, and by this, students would learn to be responsible and exhibit a certain level of discipline, in turn boosting their academic performance. I remember, when we were school, we also played football but knew that we would be punished during parade inspection and we kept a small rag to wipe the dirt pretty fast of our shoes. We also knew that unkempt hair, long and dirty nails and dirty teeth would earn you a few strokes of the cane. Some who had a single pair of uniform would wash and hang it through the night and it would be dry and ready to wear in the morning. We also knew every well that late coming does not only make you miss lessons, but it was also punishable. Missing a roll call was also an offence and this we very well knew the consequences. Students here are not aware of this. That’s why they prefer swapping classes for a walk in town. This is not the work of government alone. Parents should be ashamed by their sons and daughters and its high time they took responsibility for the needed attitude changes Checking books for the lessons of the day should be strictly carried out by parents to find out whether their children attended school or not. We need to learn from countries like Uganda and Kenya where discipline and smartness are emphasised if you are to compete favourably. kagire_eddie@yahoo.com