The Government has decided to recruit English language teachers from the East African Community region instead of single-sourcing them exclusively from Kenya as earlier planned.According to the State minister in charge of Primary and Secondary Education Dr. Mathias Harebamungu, the government had, through the Rwanda Education Board (REB), decided to recruit from the EAC countries to strengthen regional integration. The drive to recruit the 4,000 teachers was announced in October last year as part of the government’s efforts to improve the use of English in the education system. However, by February 2012 the initiative had stalled due to the decision to expand the recruitment to include other EAC member countries.Apart from Burundi where French is widely used in schools and official transactions, the rest of the region; Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya use English in education and official business. “We are going to recruit 250 teachers at the initial stage but the process will continue. We wrote to the embassies of Kenya and Uganda to help us in the recruitment process,” he told The New Times.The teachers are being recruited to train their Rwandan counterparts how to improve their proficiency in English, both spoken and written.The ministry intends to send at least one teacher to every school (both primary and secondary) across the country. Each will be responsible for training teachers in the English subject.This is part of the implementation of the government policy of using English as the language of instruction at all levels of education in the country. So far, there are over 200 English teachers from Uganda working in the country.Rose Muchiri, Kenya’s High Commissioner to Rwanda, said the Rwandan Ministry of Education and REB were in touch with Kenya Teachers’ Service Commission to expedite the process.“You will, however, have to talk to the Ministry of Education for more details. For us we are the facilitators of the recruitment process,” she said.Her Ugandan counterpart, Richard Kabonero, said: “It’s a welcome idea, especially regarding the protocol of free movement of services and people, but I haven’t received any communication to that effect”. The policy to change the language of instruction in the education system was initiated in 2008 and its implementation started in the 2009 academic year.The reason behind the move was explained by the government, as being the general global trend, where English is becoming a dominant language of business to the detriment of French.Rwanda has also joined the Commonwealth Club, largely made up of former colonies of the British Empire. The use of the English language also makes it easier for Rwandans to compete for employment and education opportunities with the rest of both the EAC and the Common Market of Eastern and Southern African (COMESA). It also has French and Kinyarwanda as the official languages. French is now taught as one of the subjects in classes.
