Over 5,000 teachers need French language skills upgrade: REB
-
Loading... - Zaafarani Kiptanui
- 22 Apr 2022
- 331 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
Leon Mugenzi, the Head of Teacher Development, Management, Career Guidance and Counselling Department at REB, made the revelation after receiving 45 foreign French language teachers deployed by OIF to train Rwandan teachers for a one-year renewable term.
The move is part of a broader plan by the organisation to send up to 100 teachers to Rwanda over the next two years.
OIF aims to enhance French language teaching in member states.
The first cohort of 25 teachers was deployed in Rwanda in 2020.
The second cohort of teachers comes from Benin, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Cameroon, DR Congo, Burundi, Guinea, Togo and France.
Under the “mobility project”, initiated by Secretary General Louise Mushikiwabo, OIF recruits and sends teachers of French to its member countries which expressed the need to boost the language’s position in the community.
Mugenzi said that in addition to placing the trainers in Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs), they will also reach out to different schools across the country.
They will both teach French to students and train fellow teachers.
This, he said, will help to produce graduates who can compete in the global job market.
“The teachers to train fellow teachers are coming from Francophone countries. They are going to help improve the skills of our teachers who are teaching French in different schools across the country,” Mugenzi said, disclosing that at least Rwf1 billion will be invested in this programme.
French language back in lower primary school
Mugenzi said that the teachers will also help in upgrading the French language teaching programme in lower primary.
“We plan to start teaching the French language from primary one in all public schools. The support from OIF to train teachers is welcome because some of our teachers didn’t study French well,” he said.
Apart from Teacher Training Colleges, we have over 5,000 schools across the country and each school has at least one French language teacher who is in need of upgraded skills, he added.
“By the end of the programme we will have known the exact number of teachers who have benefited,” he said.
French language back in national exams
Gaspard Twagirayezu, the Minister of State in charge of Primary and Secondary Education in the Ministry of Education, said that the OIF-supported programme will also help in the preparation of the assessment of the French language in schools including national exams.
“We have developed a national plan under the support of OIF to teach the French language and how to assess it. In the coming years, we will start to examine the French language in national exams. We need first to build teachers’ capacity and the teaching system,” he said without disclosing when this could exactly be implemented. Read More...
