Over 500 school-based mentors are set to undergo an intensive English course training starting early next month, a course that will be facilitated through the Building Learning Foundation (BLF) programme. According to officials, this training is the second phase of the three-year £25.3 million (approximately Rwf28bn) project launched in mid-2017 seeking to establish a solid foundation at lower primary level – primary one-three. The project targets to impact over 2.6 million children, and empower 24,000 teachers and head teachers in all public primary schools from across the country. This was announced during a visit by the CEO of Education Development Trust, Dr Patrick Brazier, to Rwanda to examine how the programme is impacting the education system since its introduction. “From what I have witnessed during school visits, the programme is running on good perspective. It is true that teachers are still struggling to speak fluently but as long as they can hear and write it is a good starting point. “What is important is that there is a commitment from teachers, students and the whole education system to do better. We are going to build from that commitment to build more positive outcomes by providing more skills and materials needed,” he said. Speaking about the intensive training phase, Julian Parry, the team leader, English Literacy professional at British Council, Kigali, said that the 500 mentors to undergo intensive training were selected from a total of 800 mentors. “After taking the Aptis English test to evaluate their English language skills, the results showed that among 800 mentors, 500 of them are still on lower level (A1) and they needed to take intensive English training to be at standard levels (A1,B2) ,” he said. He added that the training will take up to six months but will be delivered in phases through face-to-face and online self-lecture. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
