EDITORIAL: Grassroots ownership of devt programmes key to reaching goals

Last week, the officials in charge of the Rwanda One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme, at the national level, oversaw a two-day training of district education officers and inspectors in new technologies designed to make the project a success. It was rightly stated that these local government officers were instrumental in the implementation of the OLPC scheme – which has a target of reaching another 590 schools countrywide (on top of the current 410) by 2017. The trainees took stock of the laptop project over the last couple of years, with view to improving where necessary to ensure faster and better results. These are the people, alongside the teachers in the schools that are partaking in this programme, who understand whether the learners have truly adapted to use of OLPC gadgets, the problems encountered and the potential solutions. There is no doubt that involving district education officers and the implementing schools will not only help identify the challenges that the programme has faced to date and devise effective strategies to fix existing gaps, but will most importantly instill a sense of ownership of the programme at the grassroots, which is critical as far as reaching the desired goals is concerned. Equally, last Friday, the Police took the anti-GBV campaign to Huye District as part of the Force’s continued grassroots drive to tackle GBV and associated vices. This was weeks after the launch of the campaign at the national level, with the law-enforcers planning to traverse the country, urging the public to desist from GBV, drug abuse, teenage drinking, among other crimes, and building partnerships which are important in preventing violence and wrongdoing in general. Involving communities in fighting crime is the best way to deter crime and it enhances chances of identifying and arresting criminals when a crime is committed. Similar efforts have been undertaken by several other institutions but this should be the norm.

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EDITORIAL: Grassroots ownership of devt programmes key to reaching goals