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Kampala — RWANDA needs close to 1,000 English teachers following the country's switch from French to English as the language of instruction in schools.Rwanda wants teachers from Uganda and other neighbouring countries to support its switch to English.

"The Education Service Commission in collaboration with the ministry of education of Rwanda announced that the government of Rwanda has embarked on a massive recruitment of teachers of English," he wrote. "Teachers (will be sourced) from within and outside Rwanda; including the East African Community region."

owever, other sources say English teachers are needed across the country, giving an estimate of between 500 and 1,000 vacancies."ILMI is ready to hire talented instructors to teach English and/or Business English to government officials and business executives in Rwanda," read an announcement on ESL-Jobs, an online jobmart.

In Rwanda, children with disabilities typically face discrimination and are excluded from school and community life. Silas Ngayaboshya, a local programme manager for Handicap International (HI), says that "many families hide their kids at home because having a disability is a shameful thing for the child and the family, as it's considered to be a punishment from God".

Rwanda's ministry of education says that 10% of young people have disabilities, while the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2010 concludes that the number of disabled children at school is likely to be small. A few attend their local mainstream school, though most go to special schools and centres in urban areas, too far for most Rwandans and mainly for children with visual or hearing impairments.

Despite these shortcomings, Rwanda's education system overall is considered to be one of the most progressive in Africa. The government recently introduced free compulsory education for the first nine years of school for all Rwandan children (this initiative is expected to increase to 12 years from next year). According to Unicef, Rwanda now has one of the highest primary school enrolment rates in Africa (95% of boys and 97% of girls in 2009). 

How can countries encourage girls to attend school? Is the answer providing free textbooks or building schools closer to their homes? While these are important pieces of the puzzle, there is another issue that influences whether girls attend school: menstruation.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, one in 10 African girls stays home during menses or drops out of school. In many cases, girls do not have access to affordable sanitary pads, and social taboos against discussing menstruation compound the problem.

Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) in 2007 to address this problem. SHE works in Rwanda with its she28 campaign to develop an affordable and eco-friendly pad made from banana stem fibers so that girls can attend school unimpeded by worries over their menses.

Investing in Women and Girls Development experts agree that investing in women and girls is critical to achieving broader development goals.

It’s true. After one year of intensive training in rights awareness, health and life skills, vocational training, and social networking, we have seen extraordinary results in the least likely of places. At least 80% of young women in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Kosovo, and Rwanda reported higher confidence and more awareness of their rights, which are critical resources to future political and economic participation in their families and communities. Afghanistan, DRC, Nigeria and Rwanda all had over 75% of young women report a better economic situation. 89% of our young participants in Afghanistan reported their general and family health to be better after graduation, and 87% of young women in Rwanda reported health improvements.

Kigali — Early last year, the government introduced the 9-Year Basic Education (9 YBE) programme, which offers six years of primary education and three years of secondary education to all Rwandan children free of charge.The idea was to have school-going children unable to access education in the past to do so, and be able to compete in the job market regionally. The Ministry of Education also hopes that the programme will reduce the dropout rate in schools.Information from the Ministry of Education indicates that already, the current enrolment rate stands at 97 percent for boys and 98 percent for girls.

According to UNESCO, this is the highest enrolment rate in the region. So far, many countries are implementing free primary education. Few, however, have put in place a programme for post-primary education.

Several Headteachers say the programme has gained momentum following a recent schools construction campaign that has seen thousands of new classrooms built across the country. Nearly all the classrooms have been voluntarily built by parents, teachers, university students or government officials. They say the strategy of free education for all is beginning to pay off. The enrolment rate has increased as more children go to school.

Kigali — It was reported yesterday that the over 3,000 classrooms for the Nine-Year Basic Education (9-YBE) program have been completed. This was made possible by the manner in which the Rwandan people responded to the call. Ordinary citizens as well as corporate organizations contributed tremendously and this must be commended.

The mobilization, and fundraising activities carried out by the Ministry of Education, and government at large, were truly inspirational and visionary. Indeed this is the spirit that should characterise all Rwandans in whatever they choose to do for the development of the country. Most institutions of learning in the country, are witnessing increased enrolment of students. This means that more infrastructure is necessary.

uld begin by exhibiting high levels of discipline and be good examples to their students, President Paul Kagame told educati

An elementary school built by South Korea opened in Rwanda last week, ready to provide education to hundreds of young students, a state-run institute here said Tuesday.

Tanzania and Burundi, for instance, have recorded a 99 per cent enrolment rate into the first grade of primary school.The pertinent question is: How effective are these funds in retaining children in school? Once enrolled, how long can the pupils be expected to last in the education system, and how many years of schooling, on average, are actually attained by East African pupils?

However, East Africa is faring badly a 9.1 years, equivalent to a pupil completing primary school, but dropping out of high school. The average number of school years actually completed regionally was a mere 4.7 years. The scenario is particularly dismal in Burundi, where on average pupils completed only 2.7 years of school.

According to the Global Education Digest 2010 published by Unesco, in the late 1990s, developing countries began to recover some of the educational ground lost in the 1980s, when enrolments stagnated or even declined in sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In fact, the pace of progress accelerated since 2000 and if trends between 2000 and 2008 continue, the increase in school life expectancy in the current decade will be three times the level achieved in the 1970s.In sub-Saharan Africa, school life expectancy nearly doubled from 4.4 years to 8.4 years in the past 30 years. Despite this progress, the region has the lowest number of school years — almost half of the number of years in North America and Western Europe (16.0 years).