 Education/Human
resource sector |
Even before the mayhem that befell Rwanda, the country
suffered from an acute shortage of skilled manpower
because of lopsided policy of education in place.
Women and the minority Tutsi were generally excluded
from education while the few professionals became
targets during the genocide because their attackers
ere afraid that they would not be supportive of
their ideas.
"Making education accessible to all Rwandans
was made a reality. Before the war, there was
ethnic discrimination deep rooted in the education
sector", stresses Prof. Romain Murenzi,
Rwanda's minister for Education and scientific
research.
For a long period of time there as wastage and
lack of commitment to human resource development
in the country, people remained ignorant of national
problems and government policies-this probably
explains why a genocide was possible on such a
wide scale.
However since 1994, through a number of initiatives,
the country's educational institutions have created
a fast track to replace lost skilled manpower.
Enrollment at primary, secondly and tertiary level
has more than doubled. Investment in ICT is bringing
knowledge and skills faster to more people.
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The National University of Rwanda opened its
doors a few months after the civil war while many
more new tertiary institutions were born. The
Kigali institute of Science and Technology (KIST)
came in 1997 to fill the gap of inadequate human
resource capacity. KIST mission is to produce
skilled personnel in the technical, scientific
administrative and, managerial domains.
"The largest resource that we have here
is our people, and that is where the investment
should go. Training our children, giving them
a technical know-how and access to ICT is more
than competition. It is our priority to invest
in human resources development", says
Finance Minister Dr. Donald Kaberuka.
The Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) is building
distance training centres in 10 provinces to increase
the pace of teacher training for the primary level
as the country awaits Universal Primary education
(UPE). Other tertiary institutions like Institut
Superieur d'Agriculture et d'Elevage (ISAE), Institut
de Recherche Scientific et Technology (IRST) and
the Kigali Health Institute (KHI) have all been
tailored to suit Rwanda's quest for a shaped educational
system.
As a bilingual nation and with its central location
in the heart of Africa, Rwanda feels that investment
in the people will pay off in the end. The deliberate
focus on ICT aims at making Rwanda a centre of
information and communication technologies on
the continent.
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