Teacher at Kazo Primary School in Kamonyi district shows a student what she should have done during school quiz. Mock exams are a much bigger quiz to prepare students to national exams
Effective school leadership is believed to enable three learning pillars to come together; preparing learners, establishing quality teachers, and monitoring focused on learning.
To put together these triple pillars, the government of Rwanda is examining 22,453 public and government-aided primary and secondary teachers for them to be promoted to school leadership positions including Head Teachers and Deputy Head Teachers across the country.
The Job examinations started on July 12 and will run through July 15, 2022.
According to Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB), 12,000 best teachers will be hired as Head Teachers and Deputy Head Teachers through the exams, but also in adherence to the official teacher’s statute established in March 2020.
The best candidates will be distributed in public and government-aided schools across the country.
“Recruiting new skillful teachers’ leaders is one of the ways to improve the quality education because if you have enough you can expect a productive education,” Mugenzi N. Léon. Head of Teacher Development, Management, Career Guidance, and Counselling Department at REB said.
“So, we have taken this approach that will lead us to the educational goals that we want to achieve in education sector.”
According to the World Bank Research conducted in 2019, school leadership accounts for up to 25% of students’ learning achievements.
However, according to the report conducted in Africa school leadership level is often forgotten during education reforms in spite of the potential for impacting the success of students.
In the ongoing job examinations for school leaders in Rwanda, teachers are examined on academic subjects, but also crucial leadership skills including teacher management, and school management.
Currently, teachers are doing job exams from 24 sites across the country.
According to the Teacher’s statute n° 10 of 16/03/2020, other requirements for a teacher to be a school leader include being in the teaching profession for at least nine years, outstanding professional ethics, and integrity.
Other cited in the statute are having outstanding performance records and the second category of teachers in the respective level of formal education.
According to the United Nations, Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) school leaders’ salaries are typically higher than those of school teachers. But, in general, the small difference does not reflect the school leaders’ workload.
