The Basic Education (BE) sub-sector is composed of Pre-primary, Primary, and Secondary education levels. In addition, there is non-formal education, or Adult Basic Education (ABE). The Education sector includes also Higher Education and a significant TVET stream at both secondary and higher education levels.

Rwanda’s Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP), 2018/2019 – 2023/2024, recognizes pre-primary education and school readiness programmes as a vital foundation for future learning, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

It commits to expanding access to three years of early learning for children aged 3 to 6, with the national goal to increase access to 45 per cent of children by 2023/2024.

In 2015, a play-based, competency-based curriculum for pre-primary schools was approved, subsequently, a teacher’s guide on implementation of the curriculum was developed in 2015 and a scheme of work has been developed to accompany the curriculum in 2017.

In addition, more than 3,401 pre-primary classrooms have been constructed, and the Ministry of Education is working with stakeholders to scale-up pre-primary education through partnerships with mostly Faith-Based Organizations. 

Guiding documents have been availed such as the curriculum, teachers’ guide, scheme of work, and standards and were distributed to early childhood education centers to ensure appropriate deliver of quality education.

Primary Education

In the past 15 years ago, Rwanda noticed an impressive growth in primary enrolment as a result of ongoing policy developments and strategies such as school construction, teacher recruitment, capitation grants, teaching and learning materials, promotion of girls education, increased parent involvement and government encouragement towards private sector’s investment. Moreover, considerable progress was observed in terms of the increased number of schools, particularly as the universal primary education is considered as the foundation for the further development of secondary education.

The number of primary schools increased from 2,752 in 2015 to 2,909 in 2018 while the gross enrolment rate increased from 135.3% to 137.5% and the net enrolment , from 96.9% to 98.3% in these years. The repetition arte decreased from 18.4% in 2015 to 13.4% in 2018;

The transition rate from primary level to lower secondary increased from 71.1% in 2015 to 71.6% in 2018;

The number of teaching staff increased from 38,441 (2015) to 45,323 (2020). This contributed to reduction of class size from 61.8 in 2015 to 59 in 2018;

In 2018 MINEDUC started to eliminate the double shift in upper primary to allow students to meet the required teaching and learning hours.

 In January 2019, important policies were announced by the Government of Rwanda aimed at making teaching a more attractive profession with highly competent teaching staff for career progression. The policies advocates for a better pay and clear pathways. TTCs and model schools will be resourced to enhance the pipeline of future teachers through curriculum reform and role modelling of effective teaching. National and school-level assessments will be strengthened, and all teachers in TTCs and Model schools will sit for a standardized English proficiency test prepared by MINEDUC through REB, to ensure that teachers and tutors have the knowledge and skills required to implement the new competence-based curriculum. This will be the biggest success factor in relation to providing quality education and is therefore the main priority for the ESSP 2018/2019-2023/2024.  In addition, TTCs and model schools will be developed in order to disseminate innovative teaching and learning practices throughout the country and support TTC students for their practical training.

Adult education

It refers to Education that specifically targets individuals who are regarded as adults by the society to which they belong to improve their technical or professional qualifications, further develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge with the purpose to complete a level of formal education, or to acquire knowledge, skills and competencies in a new field or to refresh or update their knowledge in a particular field. This also includes what may be referred to as ‘continuing education’, ‘recurrent education’ or ‘second chance education’.