NYAGATARE - The Adventist Relief and Development Agency (ADRA) Rwanda has handed over its education programme to Nyagatare District.

The programme dubbed ‘Catch-up’ targets school drop outs, with a key thrust is to get them back to mainstream education.

The assistant manager of the project’s Rwanda Integrated Rural Education Programme (RIREP) in Nyagatare, Hossea Ndahiro, explained that they transferred the programme to the district because they are winding up in September this year.

"Everything has an end. Our project is ending in September this year so we wanted to handover the activities to the host district,” he said.

He noted that the project was successful because it exceeded its target.

"Our target was to start with 2,160 students but 2,537 students were enrolled in the first place and our biggest achievement was that close to 90 percent of school drop outs are back to school in Nyagatare,” he said.

Jeninah Uwase, the district assistant director of education thanked ADRA for their contribution to the programme, and affirmed the district’s commitment to continue pushing the project’s activities.

Josephine Nyiramana, a beneficiary of the programme at Nyarurema primary school and a mother of two children, seemed more impressed by the support she has received once she decided to further her studies .

"After my husband allowed me to go back to school, I was very excited and consequently I excelled in primary school.

I passed last year’s exams and I am ready to join Nyagatare Secondary School in the next academic year. I also hope to join university,” she said.

Currently, catch up programmes have been operating in the sectors of Rukomo, Tabagwe, Mukama and Karama.

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