Learning in most Rwandan schools has been hampered by lack of teaching materials and textbooks to support the implementation of the new competence-based curriculum for nursery, primary and secondary education.

The delays are being blamed on procurement glitches that saw some publishers either completely fail or only make partial deliveries.

Except for a few schools that received just a few textbooks late, teachers struggled to implement the new curriculum in the first term, the second term and the better part of the third term for some schools.

“We received just a few samples of books recently in the third term. We are not sure when other teaching materials will be delivered and how many our school was allocated,” said Sr Annoncita Uwamahoro, of Groupe Scolaire NDBC Byumba, a school in Gicumbi District.

Rwanda Today learnt that earliest deliveries reached schools at the end of the second term and early in the third term.

Some schools reportedly continued using the old curriculum due to lack of study and teaching materials to support implementation of the new curriculum.

Even at schools that received the materials late, they were too few to facilitate easy execution. There were only five text books on average for two classes of 84 students at Groupe Scolaire NDBC Byumba, complicating the learning process.

Sr Christine Kankini of Stella Matutina secondary school said only schools with Internet connection managed to tap into the World Wide Web resources to be able to implement the new curriculum as they waited for books.

The competence-based curriculum unveiled this year puts much emphasis on inculcating students with skills rather than theories, to enhance their competitiveness on the labour market.

Government had said study books and other teaching materials would be delivered to schools in phases ending in April given the progressive printing exercise.

Janvier Gasana, REB director general said of the 15 publishers that had been contracted to supply books, only nine complied while six delayed or became defiant.

While Government earlier planned to have all study books and other teaching materials delivered to schools in three phases ending in April this year, publishers said some books for phase one haven’t yet been printed or approved while the correction and approval processes for other two remaining phases are yet to take place. 

“There are people who haven’t yet printed books for phase one. In subjects like History and Mathematics you find some books have not yet been approved and that’s not our problem, it’s a problem of the government because we are in business and we follow instructions,” said a publisher.

Some publishers said the exercise could be delayed further by inability to meet the costs for editing, printing, transport and distribution pending REB’s payment of 20 per cent as stipulated in the contract.

“We should have completed the delivery process by this time, but some publishers took long to do the suggested corrections. There are some who indicated to us they have shipments on the way while others are in the distribution process,” he said.

Although REB admits that delays in teaching material distribution could have had effect on learning, Mr Gasana argues it is minimal since teachers had been equipped with training to help them deliver even with no dedicated teaching material.