VSO Education Conference

I was struck by some of the facts that were presented to us by DFID at the VSO Annual Education Conference last week. Whilst they highlight the progress that is being made in Rwanda, they also demonstrate the difficult situation that we continue to work in. Here are some facts I wanted to share:

1. In 2008 the average ratio of pupils to teachers in a Rwandan classroom was 67:1. Now it has dropped to 62:1. However, this is still twice the size of many English classes, and the teachers in Primary school see this number of pupils twice a day due to the double shift system.

2.  In 2008 52.5% of pupils finished P6 (equivalent of Year 6 in the UK) at the correct age. This year, 72.7% of pupils managed to do this which is a great rise. However, we are still losing 27.3% of pupils as they drop out of school, repeat school years or start school at a later age.

3. 93.5% of teachers in Rwanda register as A1 or A2 on the CEFR scale of English proficiency. To put this into perspective, having no English knowledge is registered as A0 and fluent English is given a C. Quite a scary thought considering teachers are expected to use English as the language of instruction in P4 onwards.

Food for thought any way!