NORTHERN PROVINCE GICUMBI — The district has trained over 200 primary and secondary school English teachers. The District Director of Education Deogratius Mwanafunzi revealed this on Wednesday while addressing head teachers who had gathered to review the Nine Year Basic Education programme. The meeting that took place at the district aimed at evaluating the programme implementation, ahead of the second term which started last Monday. Rwanda opted to use English as the medium of instruction in all schools late last year. “The district has so far managed to train a total of 260 primary and secondary school English teachers, out of which 100 have been further trained to teach other teachers at Sector level,” said Mwanafunzi. Under the Nine Year Basic Education programme, lower primary classes learn English, Mathematics, Kinyarwanda and Social studies as compulsory subjects in addition to three other optional subjects chosen by the school. These other optional subjects include Sports, Religious studies, Drama and music, Cultural activities and Clubs, which are accorded one period per week. “In upper primary, four to six all subjects shall be taught in English,” Mwanafunzi reminded the head teachers. Subjects taught at upper primary include English, Kinyarwanda, Mathematics, Sciences and Social studies among others. At the Ordinary Level, a new subject of Entrepreneurship shall be taught in addition to English, Physics, Biology and computer science as examinable subjects. Non examinable subjects at this level include Political Science, Music and Drama and Fine Arts. Secondary schools are required under this Nine Year Basic Education programme to select one subject among Swahili, French and Agriculture which are regarded as non examinable. The head teachers at the meeting resolved to equip each school with computers not later than June of this year. Ends
