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Press ReleasesFTI Board Meeting In Rwanda Discusses New Proposals on Fragile States, Girls' Education, and LearningMay 17, 2011
Press Releases
Joint Press Release EFA FTI and Ministry of Education of Rwanda For more information: Angela Bekkers, email: abekkers@educationfasttrack.org, tel: +1 202 458 8831 Rwanda is hosting the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) from 17-19 May 2011. The EFA FTI is an international partnership of developing and donor countries, civil society organizations and multilateral agencies dedicated to ensuring quality basic education for all children. At the meeting in Kigali, the EFA FTI Board of Directors will discuss policies for the EFA FTI Partnership for the coming years, including new approaches for education in fragile and post-conflict states, girls’ education, and improving quality of learning. EFA FTI has been a catalyst in promoting universal basic education across the world, and Rwanda is extremely proud to be asked to host these meetings. EFA FTI has been a key partner for Rwandan education since 2006. In that year, Rwanda’s ambitious goals for providing basic education for all Rwandan children were endorsed by the EFA FTI with a two-year grant of US$ 70 million. This support was bolstered by subsequent grants totaling US$ 105 million covering the period 2009 - 2013. This support has contributed towards the outstanding progress in Rwanda’s basic education sector in the last three years. As testament to this development, enrollment in basic education doubled between 1998 and 2009, to reach 2.2 million students in 2008. The primary completion rate for primary education has climbed from 52% in 2007 to 75% in 2009, while the proportion of primary children progressing to secondary education has jumped from 53% in 2007 to 95% in 2009. Having made vast strides towards ensuring all children actually go to school, the Rwandan Ministry of Education is increasing its attention to ensuring that education quality is improved. Rwanda’s new Education Sector Strategic Plan 2010-15 sets out the Ministry’s plans to overcome the challenges it faces in this area. The goals are ambitious; for example, the teacher–student ratio is targeted to fall from its present level of 63 to 47 by 2015, and the Ministry of Education is fully committed to ensuring this goal. In recognition of Rwanda’s determination to achieve the goal of universal primary completion, the EFA FTI Partnership has allocated significant financial resources to the Rwandan education sector over the past years. With financing a key constraint to achieving the country’s education sector plan, this support is key to the success of the plan. Indeed, earlier EFA FTI funding had a catalytic effect in attracting other partners to support the sector. A repeat of this catalytic effect will be crucial. Read stories about the impact of EFA FTI Support in Rwanda: Building a New Generation in RwandaEric Hayurinfura, 15, is a student at Kitazugurwa Primary School, some 60 miles from Kigali. He’s a very serious young man, who tells us he is keen to learn and become a professional and a leader in Rwanda.Just a few years ago, his ambition would have earned him a healthy dose of skepticism, not because of his dream, but because the school system had little to offer Eric. Read complete story Education and Community in RwandaMarch 18 is remembered in Rwanda as the day when heroes and martyrs of the genocide are honored. That day, four years after the tragedy, a band of armed genocidaires, still roaming the country, stormed into a classroom in the remote Nyange Secondary School... Faced with a society in shock, with whole communities broken-down, atomized sometimes at family level, the country’s leaders targeted education as one of the main instruments to repair the damage to the fabric of society. Read complete story Read article from AllAfrica.com about the meeting of the EFA FTI Board of Directors
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