Free Education for All : first nine years basic education

February 12th 2010

Time seems to fly by. The Vancouver Olympics are starting. If I were at home, I would be settling in to watch my big screen TV. But I am in Rwanda, and I am working and it’s all quite stimulating.

This week I have been able to visit about half of the schools to see how the 140 student teachers are doing in their placements. One day, I took the college car with driver and visited some of the schools farther away. Yesterday I took a local bus for 15 min. and walked to 4 different schools all within a couple of kilometres from each other. This is a heavily Catholic part of the country with many of the schools being established and very well equipped. I take back my generalization about the Kavumu students’ English: many of the student teachers speak very well while others do appear to struggle. A few have confided to me that they believe their English is significantly better than the teachers of their placement school!

Since my departure in 2008, the government has extended free education to 9 years. Many of the primary schools have been enlarged from just P1-P6 by adding a 7^th and an 8^th year. These two years are now free and next year they will add a ninth year. What I still do not understand, is that the original boarding secondary schools (grades 7-12), still exist and as far as I can see students in years 7-9 are paying school fees. How is that for 2-tiered education! It seems that P6 students who receive high scores on the state exam are accepted into the boarding sec schools and pay. Those with lower scores go to the enlarged primary schools. I am still not 100% clear on this but one thing is for sure: more students are now moving on to secondary education than before.

English Anyone?

February 2, 2010

I will try and shed some light on the confusion in Education. As I understand it, The Minister of Education declared English the compulsory language of instruction in December, 2008 with immediate implementation for the school year 2009. Up until that time, schools were permitted to teach in English but almost all taught using French. This past school year, 2009, all secondary schools were supposed to teach in English as were the P4-6 classes. Teachers did not speak adequate English and students were equally lost. Last November, state-exams were written in English by P6, Sec 3 and Sec 6 nation-wide, for the very first time. The results of these exams came out just as I arrived in Rwanda on Jan 17. Surprisingly, the results were pretty good. In the holidays (July 2009, November, December 2009 and Jan 2010 there have been trainings in English for teachers. MINEDUC had created some diagnostic tests to see which teachers needed these trainings. Apparently there were regions that had gotten hold of the tests with candidates getting perfect. As a result all teachers were trained. This took longer than expected so schools opened today Feb.2 instead of Jan.11

And what is the state of English in the schools? Teachers are speaking some English but the average Primary school child you meet on the road will greet with good morning and what is your name and not much more. The students in my college, who have all completed the High school programme in French, are very limited in their English. At the College the language of instruction is English and these students are being trained to teach Maths and Sciences in the first three years of Secondary using English. So far I have noticed that in meetings with students much Kinyarwanda is spoken to make sure everyone understands all that is being said. English is everywhere but in some ways nowhere. It will take more than a few years to adjust to this radical change.

Kavumu College of Education is my new place of work. I have a lovely house almost at the top of a steep hill running up about 200m from the main highway. My neighbour is Moira from Ireland. She has been a great answerer of my many questions. We are getting along well and will probably share the cooking. Moira teaches English at this college. Yes the language of instruction is English.

Getting impatient at In-Country Training

January 24, 2010

Attempts to get to the my placement at the College of Education before Jan. 27 have not been successful. I will now do as everyone else and meet my employer (the registrar of the college) at the Employer workshop on Tuesday. We will travel to Kavumu College of Education on Wednesday.

In the meantime I have been roaming around Kigali, seeing some old acquaintances and trying to figure out through conversations with other volunteers what is happening nationally in education at the primary 1-6 and the secondary 1-3 levels. I have also participated in most Kinyarwanda lessons and realize that I knew way more than I thought. I might be much more successful this time round. Who knows?

My next blog in early February will tell you a little more about my placement at the Kavumu College of Education. Internet with my new portable wireless modem has been good in Kigali. I will be interested to see if the connection near Gitarama will be much slower.