Kigali to evaluate schools hygiene, teaching standards

The City of Kigali has reported an improvement in school hygiene and the quality of teaching. Martha Yankurije, the head of the City Schools Inspectorate in the City of Kigali, said the improvement will go a long way in boosting the quality of education.

Monday, January 27, 2014
Students of IFAK in class. The City of Kigali has rolled out evaluation of all primary and secondary schools in a bid to assess standards. The New Times/ Timothy Kisambira.

The City of Kigali has reported an improvement in school hygiene and the quality of teaching.Martha Yankurije, the head of the City Schools Inspectorate in the City of Kigali, said the improvement will go a long way in boosting the quality of education.Yankurije was last week launching a two month assessment of students’ welfare and discipline, school environment and professionalism in teaching in primary and secondary schools in the three districts of Kigali; Gasabo, Nyarugenge and Kicukiro."We are happy that the environment in our schools looks better; in the same exercise last year, there was litter everywhere in schools, but this time, much as we have only inspected few of them, there is significant improvement,” Yankurije said.The ongoing inspection, dubbed "Peer Evaluation,” consists of six teams, each made up of five directors of studies from Kigali schools.Every Tuesday and Thursday, the teams tour schools. The activity will continue until the officials have toured all the 284 primary and secondary schools in the capital.The assessment looks at different components, including school infrastructure, the ratio of equipment in a school to the number of students, the students’ discipline and professionalism in school administration.IFAK is getting itThe team that was led by the City vice mayor in charge of social affairs, Hope Tumukunde, identified tremendous improvement at the Institut de Formation Apostolique de Kimihurura (IFAK).Owned by the Catholic priests of the Silesian order, the secondary school last year had many hygiene challenges, but have since worked on them.Tumukunde said the kitchen is now clean, and so are other facilities, adding that the school has also greatly improved its infrastructure.Concerning management, IFAK has a unique ICT application that has helped directly link teachers to the students’ parents, where the latter can easily track their children’s performance via short messages on phone.After the current evaluation, which is supported by the Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities, the City of Kigali will reward the best primary school and the best secondary school.The awards will be presented to the winners during the May City Education conference.