OFFICIALS from Rwanda Education Board (REB) and other educationists will put forward proposals on strengthening literacy programmes at the forthcoming literacy conference due in Washington, DC. Slated for September 7, the event aims at drawing attention on the measures countries are taking in responding to illiteracy.Participants from the Rwanda Education Board (REB) and the Education Development Centre Inc (EDC), an international NGO, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will elaborate Rwanda’s programme of promoting the reading culture and adult literacy drives.“In partnership with other development partners and the Ministry of Education, we have come up with many initiatives to effectively contribute to building a concrete reading culture right from primary schools,” said Norma Evans, the Technical Director of Literacy, Language, and Learning Initiative (L3)’s under EDC.They will also highlight the achievements of the One-Laptop-Per-Child programme (OLPC).Initiated in 2008, the programme has seen 115,816 laptops distributed to 227 schools as a way of enabling students to acquire computer skills and the use of ICT in education and beyond.Citing Rwanda’s programme dubbed “Rwanda Reads” Evans pointed out that they will encourage participants to get involved in public awareness campaigns to cultivate a reading culture in their respective countries.“Rwanda Reads” initiative engages in various strategies that involve public awareness campaigns and enabling schools to engage in simplified or improved literacy instructions for various age groups.Officials said that this does not only make it easier for learners to learn but also interesting, thereby encouraging them.The head of EDC, Saïd Yasin, said that promoting literacy also involves giving a chance to those who did not get an education.“This is one of the reasons we are coming up with mobile libraries in various places, especially those identified to have the most vulnerable population,” said Saïd.Prior to the conference, the delegation will visit Oyster Adams Bilingual School in Washington that uses English and Spanish as languages of instruction and also participate in the Mobile Education Alliance International Symposium,. The symposium aims at bringing international technology specialists together to forge ways through which innovative use of mobile technologies can improve education systems.
