EdTech Monday November edition live inside KTradio studios in the heart of Kigali
The EdTech Monday November edition has shown that innovative digital tools and using a competence based curriculum (CBC) has improved learning and teaching in Rwandan schools despite existing gaps.
According to the EdTech Landscape in Rwanda report by Laterite and Mastercard Foundation, only 25% of surveyed EdTech solutions were explicitly designed with content that reflects local realities.
This lack of localization often results in disengagement among learners and reduces the efficacy of digital tools.
The report says that a focused investment in creating locally relevant e-learning content is essential to bridging this gap,ensuring the education system aligns with Rwanda’s development goals, such as those outlined in Vision 2050.
To access what Rwanda is doing to address these concerns, EdTech Monday November Edition radio talk show sponsored the Mastercard Foundation, Rwanda ICT Chambers, held November 25, on ktradio (96.7FM) hosted education sector experts to highlight the current progress.
Angela Rugo
Angela Rugo, the Managing Director, Rwanda Education Quality Improvement Program (RwandaEQUIP), a transformative programme to make the country’s basic education system globally competitive, said that they have focused on equipping students and teachers inside the classrooms.
For example, Rugo said that the programme has trained teachers (over 17,000 in 761 schools) who get trained every beginning of the year on updated pedagogical skills but also distributed tablets in schools.
“The tablets contain lessons that enable a teacher to use less time preparing (lessons or exams). We also have a “Let’s Mark” application which enables a teacher to correct student’s exercises by taking a picture of the answer sheet and then the application does the marking, and this reduces time for marking” Rugo said.
Rugo said that this application allows the teachers to have more time to prepare, research and spend less time in preparing lessons- which the application does as a way of improving productivity.
This support was testified by one female teacher-Melanie Niyonita, who said that most teachers and students (primary and secondary) have basic technology equipment to conduct smart classroom (including internet and laptops) but said that there is more need to have continuous training for teachers to appropriately integrate EdTech skills in their practice.
Abdulrahman Niyonizeye
Abdulrahman Niyonizeye, the Co-founder & CEO, SmartClass Ltd,said that with an increased use of digital teaching tools the teachers will not only reduce their time spent in class but also enable many of them to teach more lessons and more class sections.
“RwandaEQUIP prepares the teacher with organised lesson plans and when the teacher needs to do an evaluation, they don’t have to do so. Using a smart class, you just set the questions into a multiple choice format and evaluate students in many classes, Niyonizeye said.
Niyonizeye exemplified this saying that in this case, if a teacher has to evaluate as many as 200 students in a day, then use of technology can be an enabler to prepare lessons and evaluate.
SmartClass Rwanda is a private sector online learning platform which aims to connect Rwandan high school students learning similar academic subjects and provide them with access to valuable learning materials and high-quality teachers.
Niyonizeye also revealed that there is a new Rwanda EdTech policy which is currently underway and has been developed to about 80%- which will enable the country to address existing EdTech gaps such as investing in digital infrastructure, devices, and digital literacy to ensure that all students have access to digital education.
This policy is also expected to outline a need for a framework to facilitate collaboration between the government, EdTech stakeholders, and within the EdTech ecosystem of which Niyonizeye stated that the private sector (through the Rwanda ICT Chambers) is very open to on-board.
However, responding to concerns raised by teachers (who called in the show) over lack of enough digital skills, Niyonizeye said that there is still more work to be done to training teachers in digital education skills, and this requires a consented effort.
Vincent Nyirigira
Vincent Nyirigira, Ag. Director of Digital Content & Instructional Development, Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB) said that through the current CBC (developed in 2015), schools with access to electricity have been equipped with smart classrooms and teachers have been trained to be able to integrate digital lessons in their practice- which is educative but also engaging for students to improve their competence.
“These training are able to make all teachers competent to compete on the international market. The teachers are thus required to integrate technology use in lessons taught,” Nyirigira said.
However, Nyirigira also agreed with the need to have continuous teacher training in digital skills, capacity building in up to date technology for them to remain relevant in using the existing infrastructure and CBC to deliver.
“We still need more work in training teachers but also encourage them to be creative and innovative in delivering lessons using technology because its part of the curriculum,” Nyirigira said.
Nyirigira also noted that the government has set its focus in education technology and has already put up e-learning resourceful digital platforms where teachers can have online training with teaching aides, but also teacher’s and parent’s guide books which are downloadable (on REB website) for free.
