The prevailing shortage of teachers in schools has necessitated the Government to waive teacher entry exams—which has been one of the assessment tools for one to join the profession. This is according to Gaspard Twagirayezu, the Minister of State in Charge of Primary and Secondary Education. Twagirayezu announced the development during a press conference on Thursday, January 7, where he was joined by—among other officials—the Minister of Education, Valentine Uwamariya, the Executive Director of Higher Education Council (HEC), Rose Mukankomeje and the Acting Director at Rwanda Education Board, Alphonse Sebaganwa. According to Twagirayezu, the Government has not permanently scrapped teacher entry exams, rather he referred to the development as a ‘special’ move that seeks to plug the shortfall of over 18,000 teachers. “Because of the big numbers that we needed, for us to cover the gap that was there before but also to man these new classrooms that we are building, we requested for a special waiver from the Ministry of Public Service and Labor to place these big number of teachers using their transcripts,” he added Waiving the exams means that teachers will be recruited and placed in schools based on their academic performance. If you went to school and you did Chemistry and we want you to teach Chemistry, we will consider how well you did in Chemistry,” said Twagirayezu, adding that; “But it should be understood that this is a special waiver that we asked due to these special circumstances that we are in.” During the same event, the Ministry of Education announced that 80 per cent of the proposed 22,500 classrooms has been completed. Twagirayezu noted that under the new method, teachers will be required to complete pedagogical training in order to facilitate their transition into the teaching profession. “We have also been considering other streamlined ways to have teachers come into this profession and this is something that we are going to keep improving on,” he added. Speaking to The New Times, Christine Umutesi, a primary teacher at Groupe Scolaire Nyaruguru welcomed the development, saying the method is time-effective. She said: “The previous method took long for teachers to be hired. The whole process from applying for the job, being shortlisted, sitting for the entry exam, announcing provisional lists, until the final step of being hired was rather long. But this will be a bit faster.” However, she warned, the government will need to put in more efforts to train teachers on the methodological aspect of the profession. “When learning education, we are taught how to deliver these lessons to our students. I think teachers who will be hired need to be trained on the same course so that they are not inconvenienced in their work. But generally, it is a good thing.” Over 17,900 teachers to be placed next week In her remarks, Minister Uwamariya announced that the government will, by January 10, release a provisional list of 17,979 teachers who will be hired in both the primary and secondary levels of education. Among them, she said, 14,999 teachers are for the primary level while the rest will be placed on the secondary level.
