Kigali- 25th April 2019- Inspire, Educate and Empower Rwanda (IEE) has a tradition to conduct monthly training of trainers (TOT) and continuous professional development (CPD) sessions for its force of educationists working across its projects and programmes. At this workshop, IEE gathered its regular technical staff members supporting implementation of The Teaching Assistantships Project funded by Mastercard, and Teacher development for quality results for children, and Pre-and in-service teacher development for quality results for children programmes funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). These programmes being implemented across Rwanda’s thirty districts complement a range of Ministry of Education priorities under the current Education Sector Strategic Plan of 2018/19- 2014/25, mainly, teacher development for enhanced quality of learning outcomes, under the competency-based curriculum.
Imagine you are a primary four teacher in a primary school in Rwanda. You have a science lesson to teach yet you do not have the necessary teaching aid. For the first time, you are going to introduce and teach about the digestive system. You do not know what to use to show and explain the different parts of a digestive system so that your learners are able to understand it well. Devise strategies to advise this teacher to prepare an effective lesson. This scenario is posed by Betty Kabera, the IEE Country Director in charge of programmes.
To cater for scenarios such as this, IEE positions itself, to respond to teacher development, so as to support teachers’ efforts and ingenuity in identifying resources to support teaching and learning. Fortunately, Mastercard and UNICEF support provision of teaching and learning support materials as part of their programme support. The competency-based curriculum demands effective usage of a range of teaching and learning materials for effective implementation using learner-centred methodologies. IEE in collaboration with partners, has positioned itself to support these efforts. These sessions give us opportunities to benefit each other, to be prepared to deal with regular and unforeseen challenges of teachers, to support them effectively, says Charles Ochieng a Programme Manager of the Pre-and in-service teacher development for quality results for children programme.
This training is of great importance to me as a new member of IEE. I have got an opportunity to interact with the existing IEE staff members and I have learnt a lot from them. My learning and teaching material development skills have been sharpened and I am ready to transfer them to my host teacher and the Teaching Assistants whom I support, said Kayirangwa Marie Assoumpta from the Teaching Assistantships Project.
Continuous professional development is IEE’s comparative advantage. As teachers, we need continuous renewal to teach better. We need to demonstrate life-long learning, which we are advocates for. At IEE, we conduct regular continuous professional development sessions for our staff members, to facilitate experience-sharing, to ensure we are benefitting each other to better deliver on our commitments to our partners, and ultimately to the Ministry of Education and Rwanda Education Board whose efforts we are complementing, in support of teacher capacity development among other priorities” asserts Emmanuel Murenzi, the IEE Country Director.
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