Hands Around The World has worked in this area for ten years in partnership with schools. We are now looking for help to fund a major new construction project at Ryankana Primary School which desperately needs new classrooms to reduce overcrowding and provide better teaching and learning conditions. We have support from Jersey Overseas Aid who have provided a grant of 40,000 but we need to match this before we can start the project. Every little bit helps!
The school is located in the poorest sector of Bugarama and is the most heavily populated area of Rusizi District, with a high birth rate, over-crowded classrooms and poor academic results. Ryankana has one of the highest dropout rates in the entire Bugarama Sector (an average of 35 pupils drop out each year). The school has grown in numbers beyond its capacity. Ryankana started in September 1998 with two rooms and few pupils (120). The total number of students is now 2,280 in 23 classrooms.
Phase 1 of the project, which is planned for 2020-21, will provide three classrooms on the ground floor, a toilet block and girls' hygiene room. The building will be ready for additional classrooms on a second floor (Phase 2) in 2022/23. Rwanda is a very crowded country where space is at a premium and we believe that new buildings should be two storeys or more. The project will reduce overcrowding (currently between 65-75 pupils per class) and allow the school to phase out the double shift syste
The longer-term impact will be to raise educational expectations at Ryankana leading to improved academic performance at national exams and reduction in drop-out rate. In national exams only one pupil at Ryankana out of 143 achieved 1st class grades (boarding school entry into secondary school) and seven failed. This is compared to 20 first class grades and no failures at Mihabura School where we have been able to make significant investment in new buildings over the past three years.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
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