As Rwanda continues to embrace and promote innovation and technology, the education sector should not be left behind, officials say.

The government, through the Ministry of Education, has identified ICT as an appropriate tool for teaching, learning and research for all students.

This was echoed during a recent sector review that convened over 150 stakeholders and partners in the education sector.

‘Joint Review of the Education Sector’ is an annual forum that convenes all stakeholders and development partners to ensure ownership, accountability and transparency of the sector’s priorities’ implementation, as highlighted in Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP), and the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) implementation and monitoring process.

According to the Minister of Education, Eugene Mutimura, this year’s meet focuses on assessment of the progress in achieving sector objectives to ensure quality education for all, and also examines what lagged behind in the previous academic year in order to improve.

While officiating the forum, Mutimura pointed out that there is need to applaud the impact of ICT in the education sector, as he appreciated the services rendered by the development partners to embark on the land mark.

"It is important to share successes of working together to meet our common goals, reflect on challenges and priorities at all levels of education as we look back at the fiscal year 2018/19 and move forward,” Mutimura said. 

He also highlighted that it is key to note that the national strategy includes the ICT in education policy, and its strategic plan that puts emphasis on ‘One Laptop per Child’ (OLPC) in upper primary, and laptops in smart classrooms in secondary education, with distribution of POSITIVO laptops to university students.

"All these initiatives are aimed at promotion of ICT as a tool for teaching and learning, and we, therefore, request the education partners to strongly support these initiatives so that all our schools and universities are able to have ICT devises with internet connectivity, to allow them to effectively deliver teaching and learning,” Mutimura said. 

He added that through inspection reports, there has been a lot of improvement in utilisation of laptop in schools.

Natalie Hamoudi, acting UNICEF representative in Rwanda, urged the addressees to put the youth and young children at the forefront of attaining quality education.

"To all the development partners, it is vital to keep young children and the Rwandan youth as the main icon of our discussion to obtain quality education,” she said.

She also added that technology is helping teachers cope with their work too. 

"Automating some of the paperwork helps teachers concentrate on what they joined the profession to do — teach. From marking online, lesson plans, video courses, and teaching coding, to helping teachers share resources, the platform is literally an intranet that connects teachers with each other as well as with students and parents.”

Tempra Nkurunziza, an ICT teacher at Kigali City School, recalls a time classrooms were a bastion of tradition, dominated by blackboards, chalk and textbooks.

But the rapid evolution in the sector, he says, means that there is need to advance how education is delivered to young people.”

editor@newtimesrwanda.com