Category: Education

The task on Dr Mutimura was made yesterday during the handover ceremony between the incoming minister and outgoing Dr. Papias Malimba Musafiri.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sam Mulindwa said the sector has a range of problems that need sustainable solutions to bolster the development of education in Rwanda.

“There are challenges in constructing new classrooms and renovating old ones while others need school materials,” he said adding that a total of 4,000 classrooms were needed to be constructed by this year, but only 1,000 were constructed.

He said there is currently a shortage of laboratories compared to the demand in secondary schools and some higher learning institutions.

“Teachers earn a smaller salary compared to other public servants,” he claimed.

The outgoing minister, Dr Musafiri said that despite existing problems in the sector, a lot has been done and other measures are in place to address the existing problems. He urged his successor to keep working on improving quality of education to meet Rwandans’ expectations.

“Though we have all these problems, we are proud to say that much has been done like providing education for all. However, Rwandans need something more beyond this, that is quality of education,” he said.

Dr Mutimura said that in partnership with other officials, he hopes to find solutions for the remaining problems.

“You have achieved a lot and by working closely with other ministries and different institutions, we shall make achieve more,” he said.

“I, alone, cannot achieve it and this is why I ask for your assistance. I promise my good collaboration along the journey,” he told the ministry’s staff.

Dr Mutimura was appointed education minister on last week, replacing Dr Musafiri who had been in the dockets since June 2015.

{{Reporting by Jean-Pierre Tuyisenge
}}

Two years ago, Lydiella Hakizimana knew no more than a few words of English. Today it is her favourite subject.

As the bell rings for the start of the day at Paysannat L School, just outside Mahama refugee camp, she is at her desk ready to begin.

After civil unrest erupted in Burundi in 2015 over disputed elections, Lydiella, her mother and her three sisters joined refugees streaming into neighbouring Rwanda. Today there are more than 50,000 in Mahama, a camp close to the Burundian border.
Keen to regain some stability in her life, Lydiella, 13, looked forward to resuming her education. However, in Rwanda classes are taught in English, not French as in Burundi.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Rwandan Government devised a solution. Together, they set up a system that enables refugee children to plug into Rwanda’s national curriculum.

This was in the form of a comprehensive, six-month bridging course, known as the orientation project, which includes English lessons. It is one of many such initiatives supported by UNHCR around the world to boost refugees’ education and help them move into a formal learning environment.

Refugees who largely missed out on an education at home follow the entire course. Others are enrolled in state schools at a suitable level as soon as they are ready. At the 2016 UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, Rwanda pledged to help include Burundian refugees in its national education system. It is striving to meet that promise.

The bridging course introduced Lydiella to more than another language. It is designed to educate students in other subjects, too. “It was the first time I had heard about the sciences and social studies,” she says. “Orientation is a way of getting used to what other students study here, especially if you are a newcomer.”

Charles Munyaneza, UNHCR’s associate education officer based in Kigali, says: “We realized we needed to integrate refugee students into the national system as they faced serious barriers to coping and adapting.”

The bridging project started at Mahama in June 2015 with 2,500 students. Since then, more than 19,000 children have passed through. “It is a really crucial step towards including refugees in the national education system,” says Munyaneza.

Paysannat L is one of several schools in the area with the Paysannat name – with a total student population of almost 20,000 – but it is the only one where refugees and local students learn side-by-side. Jean-Claude Muhyemama, the deputy head, says having a common language has played an important role in integrating the two communities and promoting good relations.

“This project has really helped the Burundian students get to the same level as Rwandan students,” he says. “At the beginning, they knew very little or no English but now they can express themselves well.”

Having adapted to the Rwandan curriculum and reached the last year of primary school, Lydiella enjoys her studies hugely. She hopes one day to spread her love of English to her fellow Burundians. “If one day I return to Burundi, I will teach others English because it is important,” she says. “It is spoken around the whole world and so I think if people learn it, it will help them in their life.”

Jean Harindwa, Lydiella’s English teacher, has been working at the school since it opened in 2015. Himself a Burundian, he says teaching English has helped him with his own mastery of the language. “It was a good thing to start this project,” he says.

{Source: UNHCR}

Speaking to residents of Kigali Sector at Groupe Scholaire (G.S) , the Nyarugenge District mayor Kayisime Nzaramba said that classrooms will be constructed across the district.

Speaking to IGIHE, Mayor Nzaramba said that she is optimistic that new classrooms will create good learning environment that would also advance the quality of education for students.

“This programme aims at building new classrooms by replacing the old ones, we shall construct 25 new classrooms and 36 latrines across the district” she said.

The G.S Kigali head teacher, Théogène Hategekimana said that classrooms will enable them reduce congestion in classrooms.

“We have had congestion problems to the extent that one classroom accommodates 60 students above the acceptable 46 students in one classroom,” he said.

{Rwandans interested in aviation studies may see their dreams come true as Asian Study Centre opens services in Kigali to help students access world-class universities.}

Through a free-of-charge facilitation by Asian Study Centre, Rwandan students can access studies of their dreams including, among others, airport operations and management, international culinary arts, Engineering international business in world best universities based in United Kingdom, Canada, India, Malaysia, Dubai in United Arab Emirates and Australia.

Asian Study Centre’s reperesentative in Rwanda, Lambert Nkurunziza, tells IGIHE that they have the specialty of offering these services at no cost while all other agencies charge money.

“We don’t charge money those who want us to connect them to universities as others do. We do all for free including facilitating students to get all the required documents,” he says.

With Asian Study Centre, an applicant receives university’s acceptance letter within a maximum period of two weeks and a visa within six weeks, taking only two months for a student to start courses.

Asian Study Centre partners with over 100 universities which receive new entrants every two months in the courses rarely available in African universities.

The courses are at all levels including Bachelor, Masters and PhD at low school fees.

Asian Study Centre’s specialties
Ø Facilitates students to access universities for free.
Ø The admitting university finds visa for the students.
Ø The university takes in charge all transport facilitation from the airport to university.
Ø Asian Study Centre facilitates negotiations between a student and university for discounts on school fees and paying in instalments.
Ø It helps connect with good institutions for internship.

{{Address}}

Asian Study Centre premises are located in Kicukiro District, Niboye Sector on street KK 372.

You can phone them on (+250) 781468884/0784608475
or email at lambertnziza1@gmail.com or lambert@asianstudycentre.com.
For further information, please visit www.asianstudycentre.com and choose Rwanda.

{At 30, new Rwandan Minster for Transport, Jean de Dieu ‘Jado’ Uwihanganye is the youngest ever minister in the country and a hugely successful project manager, but none of this would have been possible without the backing of a unique scholarship from The University of Manchester.
}

Jado was awarded an Equity and Merit Scholarship, a scheme which assists talented, disadvantaged students from some of the world’s poorest countries. The University covered his tuition fees, while his living costs were generously funded by donors, the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust.

Studying abroad would not have been otherwise possible for Jado, as both of his parents are subsistence farmers – in fact he also helped herd cattle in his village when he was younger.

But thanks to his outstanding academic results and dedication to supporting development in his home country, Jado was accepted onto the MSc Management of Projects (Construction) at Manchester.

Not only did he pass the course, he finished top of his class of more than 200 people and has since gone on to manage some of Rwanda’s most high-profile infrastructure projects, including stadia for the 2016 African Cup of Nations and extensive road building programmes.

This record of high achievement caught the eye of President Paul Kagame who, last week, appointed Jado as his new minister of transport.

Jado said: “Manchester grew my critical thinking and analysis, the experience there opened my eyes to other opportunities and of course the knowledge of construction project management helped me to succeed in projects I worked on as project manager on my return.”

The Equity and Merit scheme is in its eleventh year, providing life-changing scholarships for exceptional students from Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in subjects not available in their home countries.

There have been more than 200 students over the last decade, all of whom have had a dream to pursue postgraduate level education in order to make a difference to their home countries. Their scholarships are made possible thanks to donations from alumni, staff and supporters of the University.

Senior International Officer at the University, Joanne Jacobs, runs the Equity and Merit Scholarships and has kept in touch with Jado since his graduation in 2013. She said:

“Jado was a really exceptional student and, like the others helped through this scheme, cares deeply about making a difference in his home country.

“As more and more Equity and Merit Scholars have graduated from the University they’ve formed a huge network across Africa, working in health care, engineering, law and many more areas, all contributing to development in the region.

“We’re really proud of all of our students and this success for Jado just goes to show the potential that is unlocked by the project.”

As published by Manchester University on 4th September 2017

{Webometrics ranking of electronic repositories has rated Mount Kenya University (MKU) second among Kenyan universities and the best among private universities in the country. MKU also has a campus in Rwanda, Somaliland and major towns in kenya}

MKU was also ranked 22 in Africa and 1,013 globally while University of Nairobi was ranked best in Kenya, sixth on the continent and 245th in the world.

The latest Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, released mid-July, shows that MKU’s E-repository surged from position three to two, making it the top ranked private university in Kenya.

The MKU E-repository is a rich open access archive for collecting, preserving and disseminating digital materials of scholarly works.

The high ranking confirms MKU’s web policy is spot on and has succeeded in spurring the electronic publication of quality scholarly works available to audiences across the globe – at the click of a mouse.

University of Cape Town in South Africa tops the continent’s rankings and 85th globally while Harvard University tops the ranking globally. All first six universities are based in the United States of America, followed by the UK’s Oxford University at 7th position among over 12,000 universities ranked.

University of Rwanda was ranked among the best in the country, 57th in Africa and 3557th globally.

MKU campus in Rwanda is one of the leading Institution in Science and Technology Education.

The ranking is conducted twice a year since 2004 by Cybermetrics Lab, a branch of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), based in Madrid, Spain.

{World Educators are gathered in South Korea for Peace Education to seek a long-term conflict resolution for the current global environment shaded by violence, interethnic conflicts through a long-term approach to Peacebuilding-education}

“Peace Education Development Forum for Spreading a Culture of Peace” will be held by Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), an international NGO under the United Nations Department of Public Information (UN DPI) on September 17th at Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Over 70 global experts in education including ministers of education, presidents of universities, professors, principals and teachers from 21 countries are participating in the forum.

According to HWPL, this forum will address in-depth discussions in “the establishment of a network for global educators to co-develop education contents and spreading a culture of peace through peace education”.

Mrs. Shailaja Adhikary, Principal of Euro School, Nepal is reported to have said “I have a high expectation of this very venue to discuss peace education for educators with different cultures and nationalities to make peace a reality,” emphasized Mrs. Shailaja Adhikary, Principal of Euro School, Nepal.

HWPL has formed a partnership with 117 education institutions globally to endorse and implement peace education by designating them as “HWPL Peace Academy” respectively, which includes India, Israel, Kosovo, and the Philippines.

As promoted in the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW) proclaimed by HWPL for global peace building, HWPL has been building a cooperation with education specialists around the globe to provide opportunities of education to establish a culture of peace.

Juan Carlos Torres, Professor of Don Bosco University, said, “I want the upcoming generation to be able to have conflict resolution instead of thinking that the person with more guns will win. It is important to teach them how to resolve conflict in a peaceful way and have a peaceful mind. I will attend the education session in the WARP Summit and share about the peace education El Salvador needs with the teachers throughout the world.”

In the forum under the 3rd Annual Commemoration of the World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP) Summit, 70 global experts in education including ministers of education, presidents of universities, professors, principals and teachers from 21 countries will participate. According to HWPL, this forum will address in-depth discussions in “the establishment of a network for global educators to co-develop education contents and spreading a culture of peace through peace education”.

“I have a high expectation of this very venue to discuss peace education for educators with different cultures and nationalities to make peace a reality,” emphasized Mrs. Shailaja Adhikary, Principal of Euro School, Nepal.

Along with this forum at the WARP Summit, sessions for peace building by global experts will be discussed, including 2017 Conference for the Implementation of the DPCW, 3rd International Religious Leaders’ Conference, Region-Specific Discussion for the Implementation of the DPCW, 5th HWPL International Law Peace Committee Forum, Conference for Global Peace Media Network, and 2017 IWPG Network Forum.
Beginning in 2014 with peace initiatives on global cooperation in international law for peace and religious harmony, the World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP) Summit has been hosted annually by HWPL to advocate participation of people from all levels of society in peacebuilding.