When Ildephonse Mungwarakarama graduated from Tumba College of Technology in 2011, he tried to find out how to create a job in the education sector and today, he is the producer of STEM learning kits used in primary schools.
He started with programming, software development, and web design working for another company and later switched to create his own job in producing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning kits in 2018.
The kits help teachers to prepare and conduct hands-on experiments in classrooms which strengthen skills, knowledge and applications related to science, technology, engineering and math.
The STEM learning resources and physical materials equip students with the confidence and resilience to focus on solutions, rather than problems or uncertainty, through creativity, innovation, collaboration and problem solving.
The entrepreneur’s idea, ‘Creativity Lab Ltd’, occurred while coaching students in ICT and technology, and he realised that they needed learning kits to master lessons.
For primary school, the kits he produces are used in science and elementary technology lessons from primary four to six.
"We started the exercise with Life International Christian Academy in Kacyiru and later other schools. We train children and also teachers to use such learning kits instead of relying on books only.
"The schools usually lack practical materials which affects practical skills. The learning kits are like laboratories or workshops in schools that promote the competence-based curriculum. Parents and schools then prefer to buy such kits from us,” he says.
The produced learning kits are in line with every unit of science and elementary technology lesson among the units that compose a book.
"We started with 20 units of lessons such as light, magnetism, programming and many others,” he says.
Learning kits per unit cost between Rwf3, 000 and Rwf10, 000 depending on the cost of raw materials, he says.
Mungwarakarama says that currently, for every produced kit, there is also a video that can enable teachers and children to train themselves on using the same kits, or producing kits on their own by using available materials such as cardboards, cables, wood plus a few imported materials and others.
"This will help to learn both theory and practice,” he says.
So far, he adds, at least 500 children and 30 teachers in 15 schools have benefitted from the training and learning tool kits in the districts of Bugesera, Musanze, Ngoma and Kigali districts.
"We target to supply the learning kits to 1,000 schools in the next three years,” he says, adding that he has seven youth with skills in science and technology who help in the production.
He adds that they also plan to extend learning tools to ordinary level.
"If there was no Covid-19 impact, we would be working with at least one school in every district,” he says.