RPF should keep education a top priority

Twenty - five years ago, the Rwanda Patriotic Front was formed by a few people who could no longer put up with the poor state of affairs in their home country. To them the country belonged to everyone and not just a few. And more importantly, they realised that the country’s potential was really being held hostage by all the discriminatory politics that had been turned mainstream by the leaders of that time. Fast forward to 2012 and it is difficult for anyone to have ever imagined that the ‘small Central African country’ better known simply as Rwanda would rise to greater heights and become a force to reckon in almost all spheres. Whether it is about good governance or security it is no longer possible to talk about Rwanda and ‘small’ in the same sentence. The field of education was one where Rwanda was actually not on the map at all. To grasp my point just take a look at the area of higher education for example. 25 years back we only knew of one university whose membership was actually largely determined by myopic ethnic considerations. Not forgetting that this university only managed to churn out a handful of graduates not close to what the country needed for a human resource base.When RPF eventually took charge of the country, in 1994 they inherited a shell of an education system. The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi had not spared most of the brains that were running the system. More so, a lot of the education infrastructure was in total disrepair. Slowly by slowly the new government set out to give the system a new lease of life. The purely Francophone education system was expanded to accommodate Anglophones and much later English was chosen over French as the sole language of instruction. Girl education was embraced in tandem with the government’s pro-gender policies that have seen Rwanda becoming the country with the most female legislators in the world. Realising the shortage of skills in the sector, the government was not shy to seek a helping hand from our neighbours and others beyond. It is very common to find Congolese, Ugandans, Kenyans, Americans and the British all involved in one way or another in boosting education in Rwanda. Nothing seems to have transformed the education sector more than the leadership’s insistence on ICT. The country’s Vision2020 highlights Rwanda’s desire to progress while riding on the ICT wave to create a knowledge based economy. This is why children are now being introduced to ICT at a much earlier age through the One Laptop Per Child scheme. Today the average Rwandan child will get to know about a computer at a much earlier age than some of us ever did. My students would for example not believe me if I told them that I learnt how to use Microsoft applications when I was already at Makerere University! Rwanda’s education system has really gotten to the take off stage and this can be best be seen in the fact that a world class university like Carnegie Mellon now has a branch right here in Kigali.The commitment to universal education through programs like the 9-Year-Basic Education and later the 12-Year Education have seen the country meeting the basic education needs of most children. In other words, as far as quantity in education is concerned we are covered. The challenge now is to put more work on the quality of education so that we can achieve the required skilled personnel that will run the economy and move Rwanda forward. As the party celebrates 25 years today, it is right and fitting to applaud them for the emphasis they have put on education as the main route through which Rwanda can become a better place. As we move towards another 25 years my prayer is that focus is not lost and that more is done in this sector for you cannot overstate its importance.