The government of Rwanda is set to invest US $13m in construction of new primary and secondary school classrooms, latrines and washrooms among other school facilities.
Rose Baguma, the Director General of Education and Planning in the Ministry of Education announced the reports and said the moves comes after the Ministry of Finance increased the budget for the education sector.
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Decongestion of schools
The investment is aimed to decongest schools and significantly reduce the distance that the students, especially in rural Rwanda, travel to school. Under the plan, the Government will construct 1,100 classrooms and over 1,000 toilets, increasing the ability of students and teachers to access school facilities.
“This is part of the Government’s campaign to uplift academic standards all over the country. This will ensure that no student travels more than 2km looking for a school,” said Rose Baguma.
The Director General acknowledged that the government”s previous efforts towards uplifiting in education sector. In the 2016/2017 fiscal year, some 416 classrooms and 470 latrines were constructed. The number rose to 1,043 classrooms and 1,344 latrines in the following year before further rising to 1776 classrooms and 1452 latrines in 2018/2019.
Baguma also disclosed that that the World Bank has committed US $200m to the education sector this year. Part of the funding is projected to add some 27,000 extra new classrooms and 3,600 toilets, and therefore bringing the total number of new classrooms to 38,000.
“About 70 % of the project will go towards school infrastructure such as increasing the number of classrooms, equipping them and reducing the number of students so as to decongest classrooms,” said Rose Baguma.
