AG: Jobs in jeopardy over stalled multibillion education projects

The delayed implementation of some multibillion projects in the education sector threatens to erode the country’s ambitions to spur job creation, according to the latest audit into state finances. The Auditor General’s report for the year ended June 2021, has exposed costly delays in activities on three projects. According to the report, they include the TVET project, Rwanda Quality Basic Education project and the Rwanda Quality Basic Education for Human Capacity Development project. The Auditor General Alexis Kamuhire presents the annual audit report for the year ended June 30, 2021 to a joint session of both chambers of the Parliament on May 12. Photo: Courtesy. Particularly, the delays in the $81 million (over Rwf82 billion) TVET project threatens to undermine efforts to improve the quality of technical education in the country. “The agreement to implement the project was signed in 2017 and five years have elapsed. Only 0.2 per cent of the money received from India Export Import Bank has been spent as of January this year,” said Auditor General, Alex Kamuhire. The execution should be now at between 80 and 90 per cent but it is not even at 1 per cent, he stated. The financing agreement was aimed to support the establishment of an integrated Technical Vocational Educational and Training (TVET) system including the construction of modern training and production workshops with equipment for ten new vocational training centres and four business incubation centres. The project is part of the ongoing government efforts to improve the quality of technical education to scale up technical skills—which are considered to be crucial to reducing unemployment, poverty and enhancing social development. Moreover, a recent skills audit indicated that there are significant technical and vocational skills shortages needed to meet the current labour market demand. Rwanda targets to create 200,000 off-farm new jobs every year, and the project is seen as one of the catalysts towards this ambition. Kamuhire said that if the implementation process maintains this pace both quality of education and TVET targets will be compromised. Paul Umukunzi, the Director General of Rwanda TVET Board, said that the Board inherited some of the problems of the defunct Workforce Development Authority (WDA) which weighed down on the project, including failure to secure a constructor on time. “A lot is being done and we hope it will go well soon,” he said. During our audit, we realized that Rwanda TVET Board had only spent only $172,000 or 0.2 per cent of the total project budget, the Auditor General disclosed. Fast-tracking the project could also help increase enrolment for TVET. The government targets to enrol 60 per cent of ordinary level graduates into TVETs by 2024. The enrolment rate is currently at 31 per cent. Delayed Rwf17 billion project to train teachers The Auditor General also revealed that in September 2019, the government signed an agreement to implement a $200 million (about Rwf204.2 billion) project dubbed “Quality Basic Education Human Capacity Development Project.” Part of this money was Rwf17 billion to train teachers mainly in ICT and other skills. However, the Auditor General said that their audit into the project revealed that as of January 2022 Rwanda Education and Basic Education Board (REB) had only spent 21 per cent of the money. “Officials told the auditors that the delay in spending the money to train teachers was caused by Covid-19 disruptions. The delay means a delay in achieving quality education,” he said. Emmanuel Shyaka, the Coordinator of the Single Project Implementation Unit (SPIU) in Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB) told The New Times that the slow implementation of the Rwanda Quality Basic Education Project was caused by the total lockdown of covid19. “But so far the project implementation is at good progress whereby we are at 81 per cent of budget absorption,” he said. Smart classroom project and uncompleted classrooms The auditor general said that the smart classroom project has not yet achieved its targets. “Government invested Rwf6.7 billion in constructing smart classrooms. But when we carried out an audit, we realised that some schools were given 330 laptops and six projectors without internet. We realised this in six schools,” he said. In the 57 schools we visited with 1,046 teachers, he added, we realized that 720 of them or 69 per cent were not trained in using the smart classrooms. Some 150 laptops in Karongi district were not being used in Karongi district, he added. Even as over 11,000 new classrooms were constructed across the country, the Auditor General’s report said that there are still issues of overcrowding and few books in schools.

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AG: Jobs in jeopardy over stalled multibillion education projects