Training teachers across Rwanda

This is my first trip to Rwanda and I am one of six people who are on the education project in the north of the country in a place called Ruhengeri.

Ruhengeri is a large bustling town, which has a much cooler climate than the capital, Kigali, and we have over 200 teachers from many parts of Rwanda, who are attending the two week English course we are running. The teachers are a mixture of primary and secondary school teachers who teach many subjects from maths to geography.

The aim of Project Umubano is that these teachers will pass on the skills to fellow teachers and pupils so that we will we create a lasting legacy in Rwanda. Over 3,000 Rwandan teachers have been on training courses with Umubano volunteers since the Project began in 2007.

Since 2009, as part of the economic development of Rwanda, the country is moving from speaking French to speaking English. All teachers, many of whom only spoke French before, therefore urgently need to improve their skills in speaking our native tongue. The school we are teaching in is a secondary science school which has thirteen classrooms and two science labs – well off compared to others in the area. But each classroom is very basic with little more than a blackboard and some desks in each one.

After only teaching for a few days I have gained an understanding of why learning English is so important for the people of Rwanda. As the country moves to the Anglophone system, improving the population’s English language skills is not only important in increasing opportunities for individuals but also in helping them trade with their neighbours better.

Their hunger to learn and travel many miles to do so has humbled me as very often in the UK we take school education for granted. This determination is matched by their teachers. Each one is embarking on twelve hour days in the classroom for two weeks solid with no break at the weekends as they know a course like this is a rare opportunity for them to perfect their English.

As we handed out dictionaries our classmates cried and hugged each other. For many it was the first they had ever seen. As a group they discussed how they would help their children back home in their classes make dictionaries of their own with bits of paper, adding a few words a day to build them up over time. This is just one small example of how the legacy of Project Umubano will live on once we fly home in two weeks.

( 2 comments ) Tags: Kigali, Project Umubano, Ruhengeri, Rwanda, teachers