The question that arises when one (even half way) examines the state of education in Rwanda is this: how can a workforce composed mainly of graduates of our education system turn the country into a center of excellence in various fields of life?

We can talk about universal primary education but then what education is it if there aren’t enough teachers around? (file photo)

But how can one who knows our education system even half seriously expect it to train the skilled people needed to drive this development?   

Let’s just face it: very few Rwandans will say they are truly educated if they haven’t had some schooling outside their country.

I have seen some of the graduates of our tertiary institutions. Being in a position where sometimes I conduct interviews with one or two of them, and to look at some of the things they’ve written I can guarantee you the following: a good number of these graduates cannot read or write beyond the level of a fourth year high school student in some neighboring countries. And that is saying something considering that even there the education systems can hardly be called excellent.

Rwanda says its biggest asset is its people. So it is high time the administration considered this: last year alone 82 lecturers resigned at KIST and left to find other work. 

I wonder whether the Education Ministry registered that fact and asked what was happening. Did officials at the ministry say to themselves, wait a minute, why are these people (some of them highly experienced and qualified) who are supposed to give Rwandan students the skills needed to be engineers and computer wizards leaving en masse?

But, and this is where the administration of President Kagame will meet probably its toughest challenge all the time it will be in place—very few people in the country’s leadership, the ones supposed to be driving development; very few seem to have what it takes to do that.

Which is why things such as 82 resignations will take place in a single year in one of the country’s most important tertiary institutions and the Education Ministry will go on with business as usual. Either they don’t have the will to examine the problem, diagnose it and take the necessary remedial activity, or they don’t have the inclination to.

If they did the first thing would be to do something about the appalling salaries of lecturers and teachers at KIST and all other higher institutions of learning.

Yes, university staff in this country have many reasons to complain; they teach horrendously crowded classes; they have no research facilities; they simply are unhappy with university administrations. But every other complaint pales in comparison to the ones about salaries and remunerations. 

If I were Daphrose Gahakwa I would be appraising the president of this situation at every opportune moment; I would be constantly talking of the need to give education some special status—like the one given to institutions such as the Rwanda Development Board—and of the need to adjust the pay accordingly.

In very few cases will one who gets a PhD go to teach at a Rwandan university. This is mainly because academic staff in positions as high as professor or deans of faculty only earn between 400,000 to 500,000 francs. One rector of a university told me: “You will find these deans or professors walking around on foot because they cannot even access car loans. Yet you will find tomorrow some young fellow they trained working in Riepa earning three times as much as they do.”

Professors are supposed to take much job satisfaction in the academic environment. Ours cannot because they are too hungry for that. Not all, but most of them anyway. And on top of the insult of watching kids they taught earning three times what they do, they also have to endure watching some of the few expatriate staff they work with, people teaching the same things they do, earn hefty checks in dollars.

It is an unfair situation through and through. 

But this is concentrating too much at tertiary institution level.

Most of our primary and secondary schools are in a parlous state. Children go to school in overcrowded, noisy, dusty classrooms. Just take the time to tour any of these. We can talk about universal primary education but then what education is it if there aren’t enough teachers around?

The typical primary school classroom in Rwanda is composed of one teacher shouting out lessons to about 90 sweaty, noisy little bodies. It is a miracle how the children ever learn the alphabet under such conditions. But somehow they do; they do even learn how to write their names and count. What they cannot do is become good engineers in the future, no matter by what miracle.

The few rich parents who can afford it send their children to schools abroad: Uganda or Kenya (which aren’t that much better, but still better), South Africa, UK, US and Canada and similar other countries. These privileged children are in a position to acquire real skills. There also are the very lucky few none-rich Rwandans who win scholarships and go abroad at some organization’s expense.

They are educated. What they are not is the critical mass of skilled people this country needs to develop. Sons and daughters of ministers and other senior government officials, plus the occasional scholarship-winning Rwandan will take over leadership tomorrow. But they will rule over the same mass of badly educated citizens who can’t harness water to irrigate their farms, leave alone have skills sets needed to work in cell phone manufacturing companies.

To try to arrest the situation then here is what the administration needs to do. First find a competent person to run the Education Ministry.

At the risk of sounding like I am lobbying, let me recommend this: consider making Theoneste Mutsindashyaka the education minister.

Frankly Minister Daphrose Gahakwa does not appear to have a clue what goes on around her. This is a person who will for example state that she has no idea what goes on at SFB when one tells her as many as 400 students can be crammed into a classroom that usually is a hall used for wedding ceremonies.

But Mutsindashyaka is a proven driver of change. The man is a workhorse, and equally as important wherever he has worked (as the mayor of Kigali, as the governor of Eastern Province) he has displayed a sense of mission and of purpose.

After finding the right minister, quickly work out better salary scales for teachers at all levels. You can’t afford to pay people peanuts who are training the wonderful workforce that will take us to Vision 2020.

After instituting better pay (with the distinct possibility this will attract back skilled teachers who had defected to greener pastures) encourage all the big government ministries and institutions to begin channeling research money into universities. Only with funds can universities or secondary schools hope to purchase computers, laboratory equipment and all sorts of the expensive paraphernalia needed for a real education.