Rwanda: Educating Children Crucial to Development

George Kagame17 June 2007
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Kigali — For want of quality education, black children in poverty stricken Soweto township of South Africa took to the streets in 1976 where they were met with hails of bullets. It is in honour of them that the Day of the African Child marked every June 16 exists today.


Education has improved greatly and taken centre stage not only in South Africa but in many other countries on the continent. Other child related issues, such as child trafficking which was the theme of this year's celebrations, have metamorphosed with time but education remains an essential priority for African children.

In an ideal world, children's education would be universal and publicly financed, and all children would be able to attend school regardless of their parents' ability or willingness to pay.

The reason is simple. When any child fails to acquire the basic skills needed to function as a productive, responsible member of society, society as a whole - not to mention the individual child - loses.

The cost of educating children far outweighs the cost of not educating them. Adults who lack basic skills have greater difficulty making gainful contributions and escaping poverty.

Education for girls has particularly striking social benefits: incomes are higher and maternal and infant mortality rates are lower for educated women, who also have more personal freedom in making choices.

In Rwanda, according to the Education Sector Review report, the net enrolment rate has been steadily increasing and is currently 74.5 percent for both girls and boys. However, the rates of drop out and repetition are still high at 31.8 percent and 14.5 percent respectively.


Both these rates are generally higher for girls, and the performance rate at the end of the primary cycle of education is higher for boys. The 2000 Households Living Conditions survey estimates the dropout rate at 15 percent for girls. This is mainly attributed to the fact that girls have relatively greater obligation in supporting their families.

The Gross Enrolment Rate has also been increasing and is now over 100 percent. This is because the high repetition rates keep children in classes which are incompatible with their actual age.

The teacher/pupil ratio is currently 1:56. This is too high, a fact which is reflected in the practice of double shifting where teachers teach one half of the class in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, effectively reducing time on task for pupils and increasing the workload for teachers. This cannot be good for quality. It should be noted that pupil/teacher ratios vary widely around the country from 1:47.7 in the capital Kigali, to 1:71.3 in say Kibungo.

Because basic education is a recognised entitlement and society benefits when children are educated, the state should bear the cost, especially for poor children. In many poor societies, however, the state does not fulfil this obligation.

In Rwanda, the government, with several development partners like UNDP, has subsidised and encouraged many children to join primary schools. This owes much to the political will to provide universal education. As education minister Dr. Jean d'Arc Mujawamariya says, her ministry is committed to giving quality education to Rwandans to ensure a great future.


Parents contribute a small charge that helps in school maintenance, covers teachers and administrative costs, materials like pencils and text books. In some cases as in Rusumo in Kirehe District, parents make payments in kind for example, providing food for the teachers, assisting in the classroom, or contributing their labour for school construction and/or maintenance.

But completion of primary school is no guarantee that children have acquired basic academic skills. Surveys in a number of low-income societies in Rwanda document that many adults who have received some schooling (five six years or less) are functionally illiterate and innumerate.

Equally disheartening are the disparities in educational attainment between different groups within the country and regions.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, in most low-income countries, children from poor families are much less likely to be in school than children from more affluent families. Therefore it can be argued that the problem is not only education accessibility but the problem could be poverty in families.

Given the evident benefits of a basic education, why do so many children in so many societies fail to get one?

According to economic theories, a lack or shortage of a good or service that is clearly desirable stems from either a failure of demand or a failure of supply.


Cost is one obvious reason why demand for education might be low, given that poor families must meet their essential needs - food and shelter - first. In addition to tuition, books, and school supplies, there may be expenses for transportation and clothing.

Demand for education may not be present because of the opportunity costs of educating children. Parents may prefer that their children work to supplement household income, do household chores, or care for sick family members.

In African countries afflicted by AIDS, children may stay out of school to care for sick parents or orphaned siblings. Opportunity costs make even free schooling unappealing for some families.

Also affecting demand for education is its perceived value. Parents may not have enough information to assess the return on an investment in their children's education accurately, or they may see the return - sometimes correctly - as too low to justify the cost, perhaps because of the poor quality of the education available to them.

They may believe that jobs in the local economy do not require academic skills or that getting a job depends more on personal connections than on skill. This is a very common feature in societies where getting jobs depends entirely on the system of patronage, which is very imminent in Rwanda.

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Corruption is another reason poor children in poor families may not have access to quality schools. Government officials may shun spending on schools in favour of big-ticket items such as defence or road construction, for example, since funding for them is easier to divert and such projects are likelier to involve kickbacks.

The experience of the Rwandan primary education however is that education cannot be achieved simply by abolishing high fees and opening classroom doors. Obstacles arise on both the demand and the supply sides.

Education can still be costly for the poor, thus discouraging enrolment, especially when maintaining quality is a problem. Maintaining quality, in turn, is not just a matter of increasing spending. Good planning, implementation, and monitoring are also necessary.

Achieving the goal of universal school attendance in the country will require measures to relieve poor parents of all education-related costs, perhaps through a system of reducing abject poverty in the country.