VVOB is currently implementing the following programmes/projects in Rwanda:
- LEAD (Learning through assessment and data) - Umusingi w'uburezi bunoze
- IT’S PLAY (Improving Teaching Skills on Playful Learning for Africa’s Youngest)
The projects are being implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Education through the Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB), National Examination and School Inspection Authority and the University of Rwanda - College of Education (URCE); and in coordination with other partners in the education sector. Primary and secondary schools in 17 districts are benefiting from these projects aiming to improve educational services being delivered to school leaders and teachers, advancing the implementation of the competence-based curriculum.
1. LEAD
The LEAD programme centres on strengthening the competencies of school leaders and school-based mentors to rely on and use data to improve teaching, learning and school-based teacher professional development. School-based mentors are in-service teachers who have been identified by their school leader as best placed to take up mentoring roles for their peers, lead on school-based teacher professional developed initiatives etc.
The programme is built around 4 pillars:
- Strengthening the competencies of school-based mentors and school leaders to use data on the status of learning disaggregated by different types of students. Regular monitoring can reveal changes over time in response to interventions to improve student outcomes, providing additional data for decision-making.
- For school-based mentors, this means assessing student performance, understanding the causes of learning gaps, and doing self-assessment, among other things.
- For school leaders, this involves using data to inform the overall school performance, and supporting planning and monitoring activities.
- Support to government staff at sector and district level to coach and mentor school leaders and to facilitate professional learning communities (PLCs) for school leaders. This allows them to gain insights into challenges that schools face and to support them in taking data-driven decisions.
- Strengthening the competencies of REB, NESA and URCE staff through blended learning activities on using data in continuous professional development (CPD) programmes.
- Generation and use of evidence to institutionalise and scale CPD programmes and PLCs nationally.
Click here to learn more about the project.
2. IT’S PLAY (Improving Teaching Skills on Playful Learning for Africa’s Youngest)
Using a similar approach in Zambia, Uganda and Rwanda, IT’S PLAY supports the implementation of an innovative teacher professional development (TPD) model to build play facilitation skills for ECE. The model couples high-quality descriptions of playful learning activities with support to teachers on child observation and self-reflection; and combines elements of the ‘emergent curriculum model’ and the ‘prescriptive model’ for building play facilitation skills at scale (LEGO Foundation, Jensen et al., 2019).
The project is based on four pillars:
- integrating learning through play (LtP) into government ECE policy and instruments
- strengthening the capacity of in-service TPD providers on LtP
- supporting TPD providers to train and coach 1,600 teachers
- building awareness of key stakeholders like school leaders and parents
Click here to learn more about the project.
