During a recent trip to Rwanda, I traveled three hours north of the capital Kigali to the remote district of Burera. Here I met the Mwumvirangoma family, including father Jean de Dieu, mother Valentine and their five children. Solomon is in 6th grade, Etienne is attending 5th grade, Charlotte is in 1st grade and little Liliose attends pre-school. Their eldest daughter, not pictured here, was attending afternoon classes at the local secondary school.
After an active morning of pre-school, 3-year-old Liliose takes a nap on Valentine’s back.
This is the family’s home. With two cows and small plot of land for farming, there is just enough to get by. But both parents, who never attended school, make school a top priority for their children. Primary education in Rwanda is free, but parents are expected to pay for school uniforms and school materials.
When asked why school was important to him, Etienne said
"I told my parents that I wanted to go to school to study because I want to become a policeman."His father Jean de Dieu added,
“School helps prepare the children to manage their lives in the future. I want them to attend school so they can make a better Rwanda.”
The Jean de la Mennais School in Burera district is just a short 10-minute walk from the Mwumvirangoma’s house. The school has 1,250 students across pre-school, primary and secondary school. There is also a teacher training college adjacent to the school. All is funded by the government, except for pre-school, which the parents currently pay for.
Rwanda has made great strides in education over the past decade and even received the prestigious Commonwealth Education Good Practice Award in 2012 and 2015 for its 9-year basic education program and English language achievements respectively.
Rwanda has been a partner country of the Global Partnership for Education since 2006 and has received more than US$200 million in GPE grants. The GPE funding is provided through budget support, which means that the grants are added to the government’s education budget. The ministry of education allocates funding from this budget based on a comprehensive education sector plan prepared by the government together with all development partners. The plan is a blueprint for what needs to be done to ensure that all Rwandan children get a quality education. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is the coordinating agency in Rwanda.
In the 5th grade classroom, the teacher engaged Etienne and his fellow students as they learned about the tools of a blacksmith.
In Rwanda, children start learning in their native language, Kinyarwanda, and then switch to English in Grade 4.
I also visited Charlotte, Etienne’s younger sister, in her 1st grade classroom. She has learning disabilities, but is well integrated in the class. Her teacher pays special attention to her and helps her learn at her own pace.
This is the preschool classroom of Liliose, the youngest member of the family. In this photo, she is wearing a striped hoodie. The children are between 3 and 4 years old. Here they are singing a local song while dancing in a circle.
There are lots of group activities and times when the children can decide to do an individual activity. Some like flipping through books, others enjoy drawing or dressing up.
Vestine Nyirazuba, the preschool teacher (who carries her own baby on her back) spends time with the group and the children individually. She was trained at the adjacent teacher training center.
“Early childhood education is important because it helps children to develop their mind and their talents. They learn how to create and manipulate different things. It prepares them for primary school,” she said.
Vincent Mbarukuze is one of the parent representatives at the school. He is also a deputy principal at the adjacent teacher training center. Vincent explained that the parents are very involved at school and take part in key decisions. The benefits of pre-school are very clear to him, which explains why parents are willing to pay for pre-school:
“Last year, my children attended this pre-school and now they are in primary school. They are performing very well in first grade, among the best in their class. This is thanks to the preparation they got in pre-school,” he said.
The Parent Teacher Association and school management hope that the pre-school will soon also be funded by the government. In 2015, the Global Partnership for Education launched a results-based funding model. Rwanda is one of the first countries to apply for support under this model and was approved for a $25.2 million grant in May 2015. 70% of the grant funding is in support of Rwanda’s education sector plan; 30% is linked to achieving specific results in equity, efficiency and learning.
We met with Dr. Papias Musafiri, Rwanda’s Minister of Education in his office in Kigali.
"Indeed the new funding model will help us get even better results. There are three elements in it [for the results-based portion]. The first element is to measure the learning outcomes. The second aspect is to focus on data collection so we have quality-disaggregated data that can inform us. The new funding model is also focusing on pre-primary education because we believe that early preparation increases children’s ability to advance in numeracy and literacy," he said.
The Jean de la Mennais pre-school may be funded by the government in the future as part of this new focus on early childhood education.
After school, the Mwumvirangoma children start their homework at home. There is not much space in their house and not much light at night, but studying is important to them.
At the end of my visit, Solomon, the 6th grader, said:
“If I get a diploma then I could become a teacher, or become a mayor or even a journalist, who knows. There are many things, you know!”
Learn more about GPE in Rwanda
With many thanks to the DFID colleagues who helped to organize this visit.