The school calendar has been announced, and like every parent across Rwanda, I will be spending the coming weeks doing the familiar arithmetic of a new year: schools to choose, fees to calculate, transport to arrange. On WhatsApp groups, one question keeps repeating itself: which school are you taking your child to?

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I understand the question well; I ask it myself. Every parent wants the best possible education for their child, and I do not think there is anything wrong with that instinct. But I have spent much of my career working on how learning materials actually reach children in Rwandan classrooms, and that work taught me something I now carry into my own parenting. The question that matters most is not which school but what kind of learner we are raising at home.

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Choosing a school is important, it is simply not the whole story. What the evidence keeps showing us, and what I see in my own family, is that parents remain among the strongest influences on a child's success, not because we solve the homework, but because we build homes where learning feels normal and valued. A child whose parents read with them, ask them questions about the day, and stay in conversation with teachers tends to thrive, whatever the name on the school gate. No school, however well resourced, can substitute for an engaged parent.

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I have watched school choice become, in many of our communities, a social decision as much as an educational one. We compare examination results, we follow where friends are enrolling, sometimes reputation outweighs fit. This has quietly built the assumption that an expensive school guarantees a successful child, what if it actually doesn’t? Some of the world's strongest education systems, Finland, Estonia and Singapore among them, invest more in teacher quality, reading culture and family involvement than in institutional prestige. Rwanda has made genuine progress expanding access and strengthening quality through competency-based learning, and I am encouraged by that. The next step, I believe, belongs to us as families.

So, as our children prepare to return to class, I find myself preparing my own calendar too. Will this term leave room to talk with my children about what they are learning, not only whether homework is done? Will there be time to read together, and moments when the phones go down? These questions matter more than we often admit, because a child who feels heard at home grows the confidence and curiosity no examination can measure.

Back-to-school costs are real for most Rwandan families, and fees, uniforms and transport all demand careful budgeting. But I would gently ask us to also budget for books at home, a library visit, an evening of storytelling. These build the imagination long before any exam does.

Artificial intelligence is changing what our children will need to know. Knowledge is no longer scarce; what will matter is whether our children can ask good questions, judge information, and keep learning long after school. Our schools are adjusting to this. I believe we, as parents, must adjust too.

Before I buy another notebook this year, I want to ask myself a different kind of question: do I have time to listen? Do I know my child's strengths? Have I shown my children that learning is not confined to the hours between eight and five?

School reopens next month, learning never closes. As Rwanda builds a knowledge economy, I have come to believe our greatest investment will not simply be the schools we choose, but the homes we build around our children because schools educate, and families shape learners for life.

The writer is a parent, a publisher and an author.