Decentralizing and contextualizing teacher continuous professional development in Rwanda - increasing effectiveness of CPD for equitable learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Teacher education

Proposal

Decentralization is one of the characteristics of governance in post-genocide Rwanda, as the monopolization of power before genocide was thought to be a contributing factor for the tragedy (Ministry of Local Government & Social Affairs, 2001). The government advocated for decentralization to enable citizens to participate in making decisions that concern them, taking into consideration their local needs, priorities, capacities and resources (Ministry of Local Government and Social Affairs, 2001). Education sector has gone through a drastic decentralization starting in 2006 (Republic of Rwanda, 2006). Conversely, it was a strong political leadership that drove recent big reforms in education sector; shift of Language of Instruction (LOI) to English in 2009 and introduction of new Competence-based curriculum (CBC) in 2016. These reforms are expected to contribute to the transforming the country to knowledge-based society (Ministry of Education, 2015). However, rural reality where two-third of population make living in agriculture (National Institute for Statistics of Rwanda, 2016) appears to be quite distant from this national aspiration. Similarly, most of the local priorities stipulated in districts’ performance contract (‘Imihigo’) are not in line with the national education sector strategies (Honeyman, 2017). Iwasaki et al. (2018) revealed that classroom practice in Rwanda remains to be teaching-centered and focuses on rote learning.

This study argues how an effective mechanism of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) can be established in Rwanda in order to successfully transform policies into classroom practice. It particularly highlights the newly proposed function named District CPD Committee (DCC). Bashir et al. (2018) suggested that a comprehensive teacher training package is effective in increasing students’ learning outcome than single interventions. Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) also listed various elements of effective PD and discussed how administrative support can strengthen and improve teacher PD. They indicate importance of coordination and management of CPD activities. DCC is expected to promote and coordinate teachers’ CPD activities in schools. Aforementioned two big education reforms created a massive demand to re-train all in-service teachers. High cost associated with centralized training for all teachers called for a decentralized approach of the in-service teacher training (INSET). Against this backdrop, Rwanda Education Board (REB) introduced the concept of School-based INSET (SBI) and dispatched School-based Mentors (SBMs) in all schools to support school-based CPD (Iwasaki et al., 2018). However, due to weak leadership and inherent challenges rooted in decentralized education system, it failed to effectively engage teachers in CPD in the past. As a result, teachers had difficulty in improving proficiency of both English and pedagogy. It is within this context where REB officially requested local governments to establish DCC in 2015. National DCC seminar was organized in 2016 and 2018. However, only 10 DCCs out of 30 are active as of September 2018. Drawing on evidences from interviews and questionnaire surveys, this study explores the obstacles and enabling factors of DCC by comparing active and inactive DCCs from the different perspective such as leadership, awareness, membership and financial status.

Authors

• Kyoko Yoshikawa Iwasaki, independent researcher

• Ryuichi Sugiyama, PADECO Co., Ltd.

• Yumiko Ono, Waseda University

• Sayaka Matsuzuki, PADECO Co., Ltd

• Kenji Ohara, PADECO Co., Ltd