Gov’t to strengthen pre-school education

KIGALI - The Ministry of Education is planning to establish a nursery school in the lowest administrative Sector in the country as a way of strengthening early childhood education. This was revealed by the Minister of Education Dr. Charles Muligande yesterday during a meeting between the members of the media and the ministers on the social cluster cabinet committee. The meeting aimed at highlighting some of the programmes in the cluster for the next seven years. Research has shown that pre-school education helps in mental cognitive development of the child at an early stage and helps many families in providing adequate early-childhood nurturing. Explaining that nursery education was one area which is still weak in the education sector, Muligande said that plans to overhaul it were underway. “We are planning to hold mass sensitization of all our stakeholders including individual investors about nursery education,” he under marked. He said that they had already started equipping nursery school teachers with special skills in handling infants between the age of three and five. The training is on going in all teacher training colleges and at Kigali Institute of Education. The minister also explained that established nursery schools at the sector level will also be acting as model centres for all those interested in investing in the schools. Speaking at the meeting, Health Minister Dr. Richard Sezibera who chaired the social cluster committee explained that among the other goals in the cluster is to at least have the number of Rwandans surviving on one dollar a day going below 30 percent, by the end of president Paul Kagame’s seven-year term. According to Sezibera, implementing the twelve years of free education as promised by the President during his campaigns was also among the top priorities. He said that by the end of the term, all Rwandan children will be assured of twelve years of free education. He also said that the government is committed to further improve the health of its citizens by strengthening the health insurance scheme and training more health workers to reduce the existing deficit in the Doctor-Patient ratio. Ends

National

Gov’t to strengthen pre-school education