Rwanda Education Deep Dive

Join us for a deep dive into the education opportunities in Rwanda. Anna Wilson, the Development Director at British High Commission in Kigali, will provide us with an insight into the key education priorities for UK organisations looking to do business in Rwanda.  

According to UNICEF, Rwanda is one of the top-performing countries in sub-Saharan Africa for education with 98% of children enrolled in primary school and their free education now having been expanded to 12 years of education. However, there remain a series of challenges in their education system. For instance, only 71% of students complete their primary education, and classrooms are often overcrowded. Children with disabilities struggle to access education and in the instances where they are able to, they do not have the appropriate learning materials to support them. Further, girls’ education remains a huge challenge as girls will be more likely to drop out of school, less likely to attend technical, vocational or tertiary education, and boys currently outperform girls (UNICEF).

“Rwanda intends to become a knowledge-based economy and to achieve this objective, a strong human capital base is critical,” - Uzziel Ndagijimana, Rwanda’s Minister of Finance and Economic Development.

In order for Rwanda to achieve their aims to transform the country to an upper-middle income country by 2035, there must be significant improvements made to the structure of their education system. For instance they require support in strengthening their governance system so as to ensure it can provide quality education, increasing access to education and remote learning for all children, enhancing teacher training, improving learning materials, and monitoring children’s assessment outcomes. Furthermore, there is a strong demand to support the youth and workforce development at school, such as through providing children with the basic life skills and training to be able to secure employment post education.  

Agenda:

• Introduction & welcome
• Brief context of education in Rwanda
• Overview of Rwanda’s top priorities in education and commercial opportunities from FCDO, the World Bank and USAID
• Discussion and Q&A
• Closing remarks

• Close