Demanding third term opens

The Nyabugogo main bus park was, since Sunday, very busy with parents or relatives accompanying teens in school uniforms. The third term of the academic year began on Monday with many boarding school students reporting a day before. Company buses departing every 30 minutes from 6am to 7pm were fully booked for most of Sunday and Monday. Frank Shema, a Senior Two student at Groupe Scolaire Officiel de Butare (GSOB) was at 2pm, struggling to get a seat in a minibus, commonly known as Twegerane, to reach his school. “I have to be at school tonight; tomorrow I am sitting for a test on what I learnt during the holidays,” said Shema. He said that, it has become a common practice in their school to do beginning of term exams and so the holiday is not a time for relaxing. Instead some do coaching on some subjects that they are weak at and when they return to school, the first day they sit for an exam. While some said they visited their families and helped parents with some domestic chores, others were attending coaching classes particularly for English and computer classes. “Ours is to help the students refresh their memories such that if they return to school they can overcome the stress of an intensive work that always awaits them, especially for this third term ”, said Jean Baptiste Nzeyimana, the director of Club Speak, a private school renown for coaching. Running from August 12 to October 25, according to the school calendar 2013 provided by the Rwanda Education Board, the third term will cover 10 weeks plus thirteen days of national exams. The first term and the second term covered 12 and 10 weeks respectively. Teachers have to finish the whole syllabus, as provided in the national curriculum and to make sure, the students who are to compete in national exams, are fully equipped prepared.According to Cyprien Mvuyekure, Director of G.S Ibuka of Kabaya in Ngororero district, “the third term is short when you compare to the tasks that schools have to undertake; we are working hard to exhaust the whole syllabus and to make sure our tests prepare students for the national exams”. To go about it, this school prepares exams with series A, B, C which give them a look of the national exams and gives the teachers an opportunity to include as many questions as possible. “The outcome is that our students get used with the format of the national examinations and when it is time to sit for the real exam, they do not get shocked since the questions are similar,”he said. Students have to adapt this program and all they have is to concentrate on their studies to end the year with a good score. Besides, it is time for catch up. “We do not have a minute to waste. Our tests this term will cover the syllabus for the whole year. Secondly, when you do not perform well you risk repeating the class which is not desirable,” he adds. “It is a time we expect a lot from our children; we invested a lot in them for this whole year, and we want them to make us proud at the end”, says Cyprien Bigirabagabo from Kimironko and a father of six students in primary school for whom he pays Rwf 100,000 each per term.