A total of 172 teachers, drawn from several pre-primary, primary and to secondary schools across the country, have completed a 10-day training workshop in the new national curriculum.

The trainees, of whom 102 were also involved with the formulation of the new school curriculum, are expected to pass on the acquired skills to their counterparts in their respective jurisdictions.

The training, organised by Rwanda Education Board and backed by various players in the education sector, ended on Wednesday in Musanze District.

It covered techniques that would help ensure effective implementation of the competence-based curriculum.

Participants also developed tools that would guide execution of the national curriculum and subsequent training of teachers in its implementation.

The training comes days after the government unveiled the highly anticipated school curriculum that has been designed to empower learners with hands-on skills to enable them fit in the global skills trend.

The new curriculum, which encompasses pre-primary up to secondary level, will be rolled out in January at the beginning of the next academic year.

Dr Joyce Musabe, the head of curriculum development at REB, said the training helped the trainees understand and share their views on the new teachers’ manual that is consistent with the new curriculum.

She said the acquired skills will help them to prepare model unit and lesson plans that will be included in the manual.

"We trained teachers from various categories and they will also train others at national level, we wanted to help them understand the teachers’ manual for them to be able to train their colleagues and set measures of how the manual will be used, we focused on the content of the new curriculum, its structure, new methodology, the requirements and how teachers plan the lessons and exercises they give to students,” said Musabe.

During the training teachers practiced exercises on how lessons from various domains are prepared and conducted.

"We also discussed the scheme of work, looking at how lessons will be organised per week in the new curriculum,” she added.

Musabe said the knowledge and skills teachers acquired are enough for them to go on and train their colleagues.

Musabe called for volunteerism of all stakeholders in the implementation of the new curriculum.

Teachers who attended the training said it was a good opportunity for them to further their understanding of the new curriculum.

"This new curriculum is better than the previous one as it focuses on building competences and will help learners get actively involved in the learning process, we have been trained how to plan and deliver lessons, we are committed to train our colleagues on the implementation of the new curriculum,” Anastasie Nikuze one of trainees.

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