Eighteen years since the education policy was last reviewed, the process to revamp it continues with emphasis on three pillars of skills, promotion, strengthening of teacher capacities, and committing to inclusive education. Currently, the draft is done and consultations are still going on before it can be adopted for implementation. The Director General in the Ministry of Education, Rose Baguma says that first, by leaving no one behind, the government is aiming at ensuring all people with disabilities, any child of any gender or one who comes from a very poor family and can’t even afford buying some basic things like books, has an opportunity to go to school. Secondly, Baguma explained that the policy comes to address teachers’ motivation, their welfare and improving their capacity to be able to deliver quality education. “These go hand in hand if you want teachers to be able to deliver and ensure that the children are reaping even more from them,” she said. She pointed out that the third pillar of the new policy will focus on the right skills and competencies that are needed on the labour market. This will involve looking beyond today in terms of skills that may be needed as far ahead as 20 years from today. “This will give us an opportunity to prepare the students early enough and it is important to talk to researchers, private sector and civil society on how best to approach this,” she explained. With the three pillars, below are some of the points that the education policy will focus on. 1- Rwandan values Baguma explains that emphasis will be put on high level mastery of Rwandan values as the learning foundation to prepare the students to be better citizens not only of their country but globally. “We won’t only be looking at skills, literacy, and numeracy but we will also focus on how best to prepare these students. Here we are talking about work ethic, self-value, discipline so that we are building a wholesome professional ready for a world beyond Rwanda,” she said. 2- Accessibility Baguma explained that there are still issues around pre-primary access where only 24 percent of the children are attending to date. We want to focus on having these pre-school programs ready and functional. “There are still some challenges there. We are working with home-based and community-based Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres and nursery schools to ensure all the children are able to attend,” she explained, She explained that these schools will provide a very important pre-primary foundation that the children will need as they go higher in school. “The pre-schools will also help us deal with the issue of children who start primary school at a very late age and others who repeat and drop out,” she explained. She added that these inconsistencies can destabilise the education system but if children are able to attend the school-readiness programme and join primary school at the right age, they will be able to finish the cycle at the expected age and time. “We will require parents to actively participate because without their role and commitment to send children to school in a timely manner and following up to ensure that they are learning, it will complicate issues further. Learning starts at home,” she explained. 3- Health and safety issues Unlike the previous policy that mostly talked about HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases, malaria etc, Baguma explained that this new policy will look beyond that and incorporate aspects like school feeding, sanitation, environmental protection, unforeseen illnesses and natural hazards. “We will have components like preparing and dealing with pandemics like Covid-19 from which we have learnt hard lessons. We are thinking outside the box and building an education system that is resilient and that won’t be hard-hit by such shocks,” she explained. 4- Learning outcomes She pointed out that this policy will be looking at comprehensive assessments and include others like formative or summative which in turn can help assess how a learner can be helped to improve. “Going to school is one thing but we are looking into how we do our assessments. Do we assess students based on exams only? How else can we help them? We want to know how to help learners on how to improve,” she said. The assessment will also be looking at how the English language is fairing as a language of instruction and if indeed the teachers are fluent. 5- STEM improvement The new policy will look into investing in modern and effective methods of teaching and learning Science Technology Engineering Mathematics and how, for instance, to increase the numbers, especially of females taking on these subjects (STEM). It will look at how to increase the number of laboratories and teachers, both which are still not enough. It will also dig into the mechanisms and initiatives to enhance this area right from pre-primary. “We have been approaching this from when the students are in secondary school but we have to start early and encourage interest from a young age and as early as pre-primary school. We know it is possible,” Baguma said. 6- TVET and HLIs skills and competencies Baguma highlighted the fruitful discussions that the Ministry of education has had with the private sector about how best TVETs and other HLIs can produce graduates that fit the labour market not only as employees but also as employers. “This involves research and innovation at all levels of education but we also must empower these students to manage a knowledge-based economy,” she said. 7- Reformed pre-service teacher training While the government is keen to continue incentivising the teaching profession to encourage more people to join, Baguma said that additionally, after studying the professionals will be given additional training to ensure that they have the skills, the competences and the knowledge needed to stand in front of students and teach. “How do we prepare our teachers in terms of capacity? We must have a pre-service training to make them ready to take on the profession and excel,” she said.
