Education stakeholders seminar on

Rwanda Education Board (Reb) is holding a series of meetings with district and sector education officers, head teachers as well as vice mayors for social affairs. The meetings that will go on until next month aims at reinforce synergy among stakeholders in education to come up with effective mechanisms of effectively implementing education programmes and polices. Last week, 500 education officials met in Huye District in Southern Province. Prior to the meting, about 185 head teachers and education officers from Gatsibo, Kayonza and Nyagatare districts attended a similar meeting in Nyagatare town. John Rutayisire, the Reb director-general, said, among others, participants will discuss the various mechanisms to use in ensuring that targets of the education system are met. He said English language should be seen by stakeholders as a tool for development, business, and trade. “We are talking about how to utilise language to achieve stated objectives,” Rutayisire said during the meeting in Nyagatare. Others on the agenda are Reb’s school-based mentoring programme, the upcoming national examinations, curriculum reform, and ICT in education particularly the One-Laptop-per-Child programme.As part of Reb’s school mentoring programme, 60 senior mentors provide support at the district level, and 900 school-based mentors are deployed at schools. The programme, which is supported by partners including the USAID-funded Literacy, Language, and Learning (L3) initiative, aims at providing primary one to senior three teachers with continuous professional development in English language and teaching practice. During the discussions, teachers freely interacted and expressed their views on how the English language can be improved in schools. Francis Twesigye, a head teacher from Kayonza District, proposed that there needs interaction and simple motivation if students are to easily learn the language. Joyce Musabe, head of REB’s curriculum department, explained the ongoing, intensive process of primary and secondary curriculum reform, supported by Unicef and the UK Department for International Development. She said the reforms will result in a skills- and competency-based curriculum designed to equip children with the in-demand skills needed for Rwanda’s development. Musabe said the curriculum will integrate the use of ICTs as pedagogical tools and will be closely linked with examinations. The success of these projects, Reb believes will depend on actors at every level. So far, the ongoing meetings have been held in Rubavu, Musanze, Huye, and Karongi districts. Others will be held in Nyanza, Rwamagana, and Nyarugenge. They will end on November 19.