Feed A Hungry Mind

Greetings and I hope this finds you in good spirits.

The new school year started in Rwanda on 25^th September.

In Tanzania the school year is nearing its end with national examinations for primary Standard IV and Standard VII taking place next month

In Rwanda the primary school leaving examination results for primary P6 pupils came out in August. Claude’s pupils at Gasabo primary school did very well, and 6 pupils have been selected to go to national boarding schools. Those boarding school places are reserved for the best in the country, and for a rural school to gain 6 places is a wonderful achievement.

When we started working in primary schools in Rwanda in 2016 we asked permission to work in rural schools but near enough to Kigali to keep down our operating costs. We were allocated disadvantaged rural schools in Gasabo District. Of those schools three were in Rutunga sector. Along the way we started work in different schools, and reduced our work in Rutunga primary school and Kayanga primary school. Those two schools used our NOEC (New Original English Course) books in lower primary (P1 to P3). In upper primary they felt obligated to use the government books and became part of the government EQUIP programme, the severe shortcomings of which I have written about before. However, each of those schools managed to get one pupil selected to a national boarding school which the head teachers attribute in some large part to their good foundation in English from the NOEC books. The other four schools in Rutunga Sector, which have not been part of our programme, performed poorly in the P6 examinations with no pupils selected to national boarding schools.

Claude believes that his pupil would have done even better had he not been forced to be part of the EQUIP programme which impacted his ability to use the NOEC books exclusively. A colleague of Claude said that Claude’s P6 great performance was because of “their good knowledge of English that enabled them to understand the questions in the first place, and be able to write answers in English correctly”.  This might seem an obvious requirement but just shows the poor level of English teaching and learning across the country, and particularly in rural schools. The results, of course, reflect not only Claude’s pupils’ performance in English, but also that their English learnt from Claude and the NOEC books enabled them to perform well in their other subjects which have been taught through the medium of English since they were in P4.

A large programme funded by the World Bank has more than doubled the number of primary schools in order to cater for the country’s change from double-shift teaching to single-shift teaching. There are many new schools asking for our help.

This year we have decided to concentrate our work in three primary schools, two of which are new to our programme. Other schools in which we have worked for some time are well versed in the use of the NOEC books for lower primary. We are continuing our work in Muhazi primary school, and are starting our work in Cyili primary school and Rudakabukirwa primary school. The choice is based on their accessibility given the enormous rise in fuel prices, their relatively small size and the fact that the EQUIP programme is not in those schools and is unlikely to be. That is because the schools do not have electricity, and the EQUIP programme is based on pre-scripted dated lessons uploaded to a Tablet given to the teacher. Our choice of Rudakabukirwa school is also influenced by teacher Josephine’s transfer there from Kibara primary school. Josephine is committed to the use of the NOEC books, and trained new teachers in how to use the books at Kibara. Her experience will be invaluable at Rudakabukirwa primary school.

We are now using funds to print more NOEC books for these three schools as well as the Wall Charts which are used in P1 and P2.

The Minister of State for Primary and Secondary education, Gaspard Twagirayezu, has been promoted to be Minister for Education, and Claudette Nirere is the new Minister of State. We hope to meet her before too long to speak about the success of the NOEC books, in the knowledge that Gaspard Twagirayezu supports our work.

On a final note about our work in Rwanda, Ivan has been advised that his hip operation cannot be re-done, and he is now having physiotherapy and has new shoe orthotics. At least his back pain is subsiding.

In Tanzania at Bright School they too had good examination results. The results are from the national Standard IV examinations last year (Bright School has its first Standard VII sitting examinations this year) which have only recently been compiled into regional and district comparative results. Bright School was 23^rd in the whole district which has over 220 schools.

At last we are near to introducing the NOEC books to the pupils at Bright. I started training teachers in the use of the books, and already they are keen to start using them in the new school year in January. Books and Wall Charts will need to be printed ready for January.

Thank you once again for your support of our work. In our small way, and perhaps even against the odds, our work is achieving great results. The results are there every day with every pupil’s success in understanding English and using good English to describe what s/he is doing, but that success has now paid off in national examinations for Claude’s P6 pupils. Without your support this could not have happened. 

I am eternally grateful for every penny and cent that you so generously find for our work.

With all good wishes,

Katy