Kigali, 18 January 2023: The Ministry of Education in partnership with the World Bank hosted, the Foundation Learning Symposium, a 3-day event took place from 18-20 Jan 2023 at Kigali Convention Center which convened senior government officials, development partners, researchers, students, teachers, and parents to interact and discuss around progress to strengthen foundational learning as well as actions to be prioritized under the recently developed National Strategy for Accelerated Foundational Learning.

In his opening remarks, Minister of State in charge of Primary and Secondary Education, Hon. Gaspard Twagirayezu said that the symposium was an excellent opportunity to step back and reflect on progress and challenges towards accelerating foundational learning for Rwandan children.

Hon. Twagirayezu: Rwanda has achieved tremendous progress in education sector. We have dramatically enhanced access to education. At the primary education level, we can report close to universal access with net-enrollment rates of 98.9%.

"We have also drastically increased transition rates to secondary education. We have put in place various efforts to address drop-out and repetition to ensure children complete 12 years of primary education. Education is about more than just accessing schooling systems. MINEDUC is guided by the mission to transform Rwandan citizens into skilled human capital for the socio-economic development of Rwanda and to achieve this, we need to ensure the foundations are solid”. Hon. Twagirayezu added.

Huma Kidwai, a Senior Education Specialist and Task Team Leader of Quality Basic Project at World Bank said said that in Rwanda, having quality education, and a competent labour force is a priority and the World Bank, has been among Rwanda’s close partners to improve quality of learning, says the country has indicated “political commitment and funds spent appropriately.

Huma Kidwai, Senior Education Specialist&Task Team Leader of Quality Basic Education Project- World Bank

“There is political commitment. This is, I think, an area where Rwanda is very strong and an Inspiration to the world. There is commitment in improving human development. It comes all the way from the top offices down to the level of schools.”

“I think, the structure and the organizations of the systems really allows that commitment, performance, contracts, and compliance structure. This is a huge strength, and the country continues to capitalize them. However, improving the quality of teaching has been identified as an area of work,” She added.

Last year, the government intensified efforts on improving the education system with mass construction of classrooms across the country, and increasing teachers’ salaries, a decision that was hugely welcomed by the public. A total of 22,500 new classrooms are now being used, recruited over 29000 new teachers last year only, increased primary teacher’s salaries by 88% and teachers with A0 and A1 degrees saw salaries increased by 40%.

The World Bank has been financing Rwanda’s education sector for several years and various fields that target enhancing teacher effectiveness for improved student learning, reducing overcrowding and distance to schools, and strengthening institutional capacity to support teaching and learning. One of the Word Bank Financed project in Education is Rwanda Quality Basic Education for Human Capital Development Project which intends to improve teacher competency and students retention in basic education. It was funded with a tune of $340 million to be implemented in 7 years.