Kigali- 6th May 2019- 20-year-old Niyigena Beline comes from Ruhango district in the southern province of Rwanda. Beline studied sciences in her high school studies. Last year, she sat for her advanced level examinations and excelled with 70 out of 75 aggregates. Beline wants to do education as a course at university. She aspires to take up education as her future career.
Beline is one of the bright female scholars supported by Mastercard foundation through FAWE Rwanda. She has been taken on by Inspire Educate and Empower Rwanda (IEE), to participate in its Teaching Assistantship Project funded by Mastercard Foundation through its Leaders in Teaching (LIT) Initiative in Rwanda. This project is engaging bright young girls who have completed secondary education, with an interest in teaching and education to gain experience in the teaching profession and explore it as their future career. The Teaching Assistantships Project is part of Mastercard Foundation’s commitment to supporting livelihoods and opportunities for young people in Africa, particularly women, to secure dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. Particularly, under the “Recruit” pillar of the LIT initiative, Mastercard Foundation is supporting skill-nurturing, to attract passionate, young women with an interest in education to join the teaching profession.
Beline is one of the one hundred and fifty bright girls in their transitional year to tertiary education, deployed at seventy-five schools in fifteen districts across Rwanda, as Teaching Assistants supporting the learning of mathematics and science for six months. Beline and her peers participated in a six-day pre-deployment training facilitated by IEE to equip them with knowledge, values and skills to support their Teaching Assistantships. At this training, they were trained on aspects of English language for teaching, planning for teaching and teaching methodology, study strategies and personal development, gender awareness and gender responsive pedagogy, and inclusive education. These aspects of training have been identified as critical to nurturing personal development of the Teaching Assistants as well as equipping them with immediate skills they need to effectively support the learning of students at their schools of deployment in mathematics and science.
‘’As an aspiring teacher, I have gained a lot from this training. I now understand how to prepare to teach the Competency- based Curriculum and when I join University, I will be ahead of my colleagues and so it will be easy for me. My passion and interest for education has gone to another level and my public speaking confidence has also improved since I have been taught about public speaking and presentation. I have been exposed to and interacted with fellow Teaching Assistants and mentors and I have learnt a lot and will continue learning from them. I now feel prepared to stand before students at my school of deployment, to teach them’’, Beline says confidently.
In complimenting Beline’s determination, Betty Kabera, the IEE Deputy Country Director says that “The Teaching Assistantships Project is here for girls like Beline, as an opportunity for them to realize their dreams. But we need more. The field is vast and the Ministry of Education will benefit from many more young people being inspired to join the teaching career, so as to contribute to the current agenda of quality learning, under the competency-based curriculum. The project is laying pathways to support this agenda”.
This training covered several activities aimed at equipping the Teaching Assistants with skills, knowledge and values regarding English language for teaching, planning for teaching and teaching methodology, study strategies and personal development, gender responsive pedagogy, and special needs and inclusive education for applicability in their Teaching Assistantships. According to the project deployment model, a total of ten Teaching Assistants are supported by a school-based Teaching Assistantship Mentor, responsible for their continuous capacity building to effectively carry out their roles, while also developing overall as motivated, self-driven, confident women to lead successful careers and productive lives as teachers or enthusiasts in education.
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