Musanze teachers cry foul as administration asks them to pay for lost laptops

The laptops went missing in 2012 when 27 of the 500 laptops given to the school could not be accounted for. The school administration has decided that 25 laptops must be paid for by teachers representing classes from where they disappeared.
The accused teachers however say they did not take part in the loss of the gadgets adding an agreement is made between the parent and school administration not involving the teachers.

“The agreement is between the parent and school administration. I don’t know how a teacher is going to be involved in the matter. Computers are lent to students, not to teachers,” one of the teachers explained.

He added that as a matter of fact, computers were issued in office, and the school principal signed an agreement with parents who borrowed the laptops for their children. ”Surprisingly we heard that the school administration wants to hold us responsible and pay for the computers as class representatives,” he said.

GS Kitabura head teacher, Jean Baptiste Turatsinze told Radio Rwanda that he also came to the school in 2016 and found out that they computers were missing. Then, he made a decision to write to the teachers requesting them to pay for them.

According to Musanze District mayor, Jean Damascène Habyarimana, “The school itself has been asked to search for the machines, which is why we have to go down and check among the parents and children for proper accountability,.”

The Government of Rwanda initiated One Laptop Per Child program as a way of building a firm foundation for IT skills that would support development of Rwanda as a technology hub.

A report from the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) in March 2018 indicates that approximately 260,000 laptops of XO brand have been donated to 1,523 primary schools, and 9,350 teachers were taught basic computer lessons.

It also showed that at least, 2667 laptops were stolen, but only 973 were returned after the representatives of the project asked district authorities to follow it up. Between 100 and 200 laptops break down every year but those that are not severely damaged are repaired.