KIGALI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Rwandan Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente on Thursday reaffirmed his government's commitment to improving the quality of education while ensuring equitable access for all children in the East African country.
While addressing the plenary session of parliament, Ngirente highlighted several initiatives aimed at improving education, including the expansion of classrooms, curriculum reforms, the implementation of a school feeding program, the improvement of connectivity, and increased access to educational materials such as textbooks and laptops.
"Primary school enrollment has increased from about 2.5 million in 2017 to 2.8 million currently. This is a large number that has been scaled up in a short period of time," he said.
He added that school enrollment has forced the government to increase the number of classroom blocks and schools; the average number of students in a classroom has decreased from 80 per class in 2017 to 57 per class currently. The government target is 45 students per class.
Ngirente also said the government's budget allocated to primary and secondary education increased from 14 billion Rwandan francs (about 10.9 million U.S. dollars) in the 2017-2018 fiscal year to 23 billion Rwandan francs in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
The government, meanwhile, increased the budget allocation for school feeding programs from 6 billion Rwandan francs in 2017-2018 to 90 billion Rwandan francs in 2023-2024 to cater for primary and secondary students.
To improve teaching standards, Ngirente said the government has increased teacher recruitment from 41,000 in 2017 to over 67,000 in primary schools. ■
