By Katy Allen | Director
Education East Africa Quarterly Report
UPDATE FROM KIGALI
February 2018
A new school year
Happy New Year, with hope for a fulfilling and successful year for us all.
We held our workshop on Thursday 2nd November 2017 in Kigali and it was a great success. The workshop was officially opened by the Honourable Minister for Education, Dr Papias Musafiri. The Director General of the Rwanda Education Board, and Heads of Departments at the Rwanda Education Board (REB) all attended, as well as many others from REB. Also there were representatives from the University of Rwanda, Teacher Training Colleges, The Academy of Languages, Gasabo District, Primary Schools, as well as from the media. Short interviews and snippets from the workshop were shown on Rwanda Television national news that same evening.
The Head Teachers and English teachers from our project schools attended, and two groups of pupils from Primary 1 classes came to take part in sample lessons. We had 20 pupils from Gikomero primary school with their English teacher Emima, and 20 pupils from Gasabo primary school with their English teacher Claude. The Minister for Education was particularly interested in this, and he and the rest of the audience not only thoroughly enjoyed seeing the pupils demonstrate their understanding and use of English but were very impressed with their competence.
The pupils were treated to a tour of the city of Kigali, and they were all awed by the tall buildings and the traffic. Their other treat was to have a huge lunch after the workshop. Both Emima and Claude were interviewed and were shown on the national news, and so it was a day that they and their pupils will not forget.
The workshop certainly fulfilled its aim of informing all present of our work, and more importantly the impact it is having.
Since the workshop there has been much interest in our work. So much so that we are now committed to working in two more schools.
The new school year starts on Monday 22nd January. With new Primary 1 pupils (7 year olds) enrolling, it will take a few days before the term gets fully underway. Once back in the schools we will look at the test results. We set our own English tests for the Primary 1 pupils at the end of 2017. The teachers have told me that most of the pupils did very well, and it will be interesting to see which questions, if any, caused difficulties. As we start the new year, we will now be concentrating on pupils in Primary 2 as they continue learning English with the NOEC, and starting again with new Primary 1 pupils. We will have interesting discussions with the Head Teachers as to whether last year’s Primary 1 teacher should stay teaching Primary 1 to consolidate their use of NOEC One materials, or whether that teacher will move with the pupils to Primary 2 and develop his or her English and teaching methods. This was not possible to discuss at the end of last year, as there may be some redistribution of teachers between schools, new teachers coming in, and resignations of teachers. There is always need to be flexible in our programme.
In December a new Honourable Minister for Education was appointed. We are now hoping for an appointment to meet the new Minister.
There is a video of the presentation I gave at the workshop. It lasts about 30 minutes which is a long time to sit and watch, but it does set out the challenges in the existing primary English curriculum and how the use of the NOEC materials is addressing these. Please follow this link https://vimeo.com/251793810.
We are looking forward to a busy new term, getting to know the new Honourable Minister for Education, and more liaison with other education officials, not to mention working in two new project schools.
All our past work has been funded by the generosity of our donors, and we hope that you continue to appreciate our work. 2018 will see our work continue to give our Rwandese pupils skills in English. Once they enter Primary 4 every subject is taught using English, and so each pupil must be properly prepared in order to carry on with their education. This is a great challenge, and in many primary schools the pupils are not prepared and so teachers teach in the mother tongue whilst trying to cope with all the textbooks in English. The NOEC materials prepare the pupils, and this year we hope to show that Primary 2 pupils can reach a level in English which is beyond that of the pupils currently in Primary 5.
Thank you for your loyal support, and your belief that education is the key to the life of these pupils.
Katy Allen - Director
18th January 2018
Education is the Passport to a Self-Sustaining Life
https://www.educationeastafrica.org/
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
