40 education projects vie for innovation funding

The Ministry of Education and UK Aid Fund project is currently screening 39 proposals from education innovators who stand a chance of getting funding worth between Rwf 50m-Rwf 800m. The three years funding project that aims at improving the quality of education is focused on empowering new innovators in education.“We received 150 projects that expressed interest and from that number, the vetting exercise shortlisted 41 projects that can help or contribute to the promotion of quality education,” said Marc Van der Stouwe, head of the project.He explained that the 41 were then asked to submit their full proposals so that they can further be screened to select those that will be funded. Only 39 finally submitted in their proposals.Stouwe said that the first vetting exercise based on two major factors that included the capacity for applicants to implement what they had in their proposals and relevance and applicability in line with responding to the challenges the education system.The project that will cost Rwf 10bn has capacity of providing financial support ranging from Rwf 50m to Rwf 800m depending on the size of the proposed project.“In two weeks time, we shall have come up with the exact number of projects to fund, and we are sure that before end of the year, these projects will have signed contracts,” he said.Implementations of the activities by the projects are expected to kick off in January next year. Stouwe said that among other factors that heavily contribute to a project to qualify for funding is the monitoring mechanism in place to ensure that activities are implemented as per the proposals.Although officials working on the project could not establish the actual number of projects that will be supported, it is expected that the number will be reduced.The project`s policy and institutional development adviser, Claver Yisa, recently told The New Times that among others, projects dealing in promoting ICT stand more chances of benefiting from the fund.He also said that monitoring and evaluation exercises will be conducted to check on the effectiveness and progress of each funded project.

National

40 education projects vie for innovation funding