Over the Easter holidays in April, the Rwanda Education Board organised nation-wide training on delivering the new Competence-based Curriculum. The teachers at Umubano Primary School attended this training, with the experience captured by Agrippine Umugwaneza, Deputy Head Teacher at UPS.

The Ministry of Education in Rwanda launched the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) in 2016. Different training programmes were held to empower teachers to deliver the content at the highest level. The new curriculum aims to produce a competent person who has skills, knowledge, attitudes and values.

During this Easter holiday, Kanombe Sector organised training on the CBC for all teachers. Teachers from private schools attended this training from 11-12th April 2018, held at Centre Scolaire Kabeza. The objective of the training was to improve teaching and learning outcomes.

Teachers from Umubano Primary School enjoyed the time they spent in the training, offering them a good opportunity to share their pedagogical experience with other teachers. One of the UPS staff said that the topics covered in the training were things UPS have already been doing for a long time. However, as an area for improvement, the UPS teachers thought that they could make their lessons more practical and relate them to everyday life.

UPS teachers loved the new CBC lesson plan and have started using it. There are many good things that teachers have been doing which were not in the old lesson plan, whilst the new lesson plan is much more detailed. The new format includes cross-cutting issues and generic competencies like critical thinking, cooperation and communication. The cross-cutting issues do not stand alone as a subject; rather, they are issues that run through the entire curriculum, such as: gender education, peace education and inclusive education. Teachers will demonstrate the cross-cutting issues and generic competences to be developed in the lesson. The Phase Leaders (senior teachers at UPS) all agreed that though these issues are not new to the staff, they are new to the format of the lesson plan.

Teachers also enjoyed the training on Smart Assessment. While assessing learners, teachers have to ask questions that enable students to reach the highest levels as defined by Bloom’s Taxonomy, for example creation, evaluation and analysis, allowing them to reach beyond the most basic levels of critical thinking.

As an outcome of the training, teachers agreed to implement the following:

1. To start using REB plans and scheme of work to plan lessons;

2. To always use Smart Assessment;

3. To keep sharing experiences with other teachers.