The influx of English-speaking Rwanda Diaspora after the 1994 genocide significantly changed the country’s linguistic landscape. English was soon added as a third official language along with Kinyarwanda and French. Last year the die was cast when Rwanda joined with the region’s three major English-speaking countries – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – to form the new East African Community, and English was adopted as the alliance’s official language.

Most significantly, Rwandans want to compete in the global marketplace. And they know that to compete, they must educate their youth to become global citizens – fluent in English, the global language of commerce and education. With its usual sense of urgency, Rwanda recently mandated that within four years, the language of English is to become the medium of instruction for all primary, secondary and post-secondary schools in the nation.  This is no small task given that less than 1,000 of Rwanda’s 50,000 current teachers speak English well enough to use it in their classrooms.  

President Kagame has asked Bridge2Rwanda to establish a new English Language faculty at Muhabura University to help the Ministry of Education prepare Rwanda’s teachers and top students for the English-speaking world.

Are you an English Language (ESL/EFL) teacher? Is God calling you to help Rwanda? Email Glen Woodruff, Muhabura University’s CEO, at gwoodruff@MUrwanda.org ,or check out the ‘jobs’ tab on the B2R homepage.

To add the 3 years of secondary by the next school year, Rwanda’s new Education Minister, Charles Murigande (former Foreign Affairs Minister), has assumed the challenge of significantly increasing the classroom facilities of over 2100 primary schools by January 2010. That’s not a typo…the goal is to build the facilities over the next four months with a fraction of the necessary budget.

To accomplish this monumental task, the people of Rwanda are mobilizing in every village, sector and district to help with the construction. On its limited budget, the government will provide each community with cement and metal roofing. Rwanda’s army and its prison population will also be mobilized to work alongside the citizens.

Rwandan’s dream BIG…but even more impressive is that they will come together and pay the price to create a better life for their children.   

Education Priority #2 – Last year Rwanda mandated that within four years, the language of English is to become the medium of instruction for all primary, secondary and post-secondary schools in the nation. Their challenge? — Less than 2 percent of Rwanda’s current teachers speak English. To be continued…..

Ask a question….