Head teachers should work closely with parents and teachers to create a good learning environment necessary to deliver quality education. This was the main message at the City of Kigali yearly education partners’ meeting that aimed at evaluating the implementation of last year’s recommendations for both primary and secondary government and private schools in Kigali. The Tuesday meeting attracted private, government and semi-government schools head teachers, district education officers, parents, teachers and CoK leadership. The recommendations were based on an evaluation carried out under the partnership of the City and Rwanda Education Board (REB) which revealed flaws in several schools. These included congested classrooms, feeding problems, drugs, and unwanted pregnancies, among students. The City of Kigali vice-mayor in charge of social affairs, Patricia Muhongerwa, urged schools which still lag in creating conducive learning environment for students to change their working routine. “When you look at the challenges these schools face, there is no financial constraints requiring government intervention; it is indeed negligence because they (school head teachers) are busy in their personal affairs and don’t focus on development of schools they manage,” she said. City schools should start positioning themselves to international standards, she said. The Rwanda Education Board’s regional inspector for City of Kigali, Gerard Rutali, said the congestion in classrooms was due to growing students’ population. He called for collective responsibility to tackle school dropout. He said head teachers should link parents and teachers to ensure good monitoring of children’s education. Sister Elizabeth Furaha, the head teacher for Ecole Privee Marie Auxiatrice said teachers, parents and schools need to work together to ensure education success. “Parents, teachers and school administration together make things happen, they play a very big role in education. Students come to me from home, if they don’t have a good foundation from home I can’t do much. So we should be complementing each other,” she told The New Times. During the meeting, winners of this year’s school Peer Evaluation and school debate competition were awarded various prizes, including scholastic materials. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
