Technology gives education a facelift

By Charity Beza Uwase, World Vision Rwanda Communications Officer

When you walk into a primary five class at Group Scholaire, St Bruno, it's amazing to see the level of concentration of the pupils. They are all calm, engaged and focused ... a rare sight in most schools! Every pupil is concentrating on the English lesson and their teacher walks around to help them.

With his face engrossed in his gadget, 12-year-old Moise explains how he learns with technology in his daily classes. Using an iPad has also helped him improve his English language skills.

"The ProFuturo iPads help us to follow our lessons without having to write notes in the books. The teachers guide us on how to use the gadgets," he says.

Before the use of iPads, pupils had to handwrite notes in their books, which created challenges for both pupils and teachers.

Many pupils can't write as quickly as their teachers when taking notes. At times during their lessons, they would miss information because they could not keep up with the teacher's speed. Meanwhile, some children couldn't take notes because they had nowhere to write, as they couldn't afford enough books for all their subjects.

Not only does technology make it easier for children like Moise in class, but they also love using iPads to learn. It's fun, engaging and this encourages them to come to school every day to use them.

The children at the school now use iPads for every lesson, which is helping them become familiar with technology at a young age. All of the lessons are already on the iPads, so pupils can still attempt  their lessons even when a teacher is absent.

Beatrice, 40, is a mathematics teacher at the same school. She has been a teacher for more than 19 years and says that the technology has reduced the rate of absenteeism and dropout for children. Children are now eager to come to school.

“The use of technology has also reduced the work of teachers having to write notes on the blackboard for children. Today all the notes are on the iPads, pupils do not also have to copy notes from the blackboard. Copying notes was a challenge for some pupils,” she said.

For teachers, this has the extra benefit of reducing the time needed to prepare lessons. They now use the extra time for research and learning to improve their skills.

"I thank the ProFuturo donor for this great project they brought to our school, through World Vision. It has changed the lives of both teachers and pupils. I would like to request that they scale up the project to other rural schools so that they help pupils learn English language skills," says Beatrice.

Beatrice adds that the gadgets help teach children English language. Sometimes when teaching the pupils, teachers might add in Kinyarwanda since English is not their first language, but with the gadgets, it's purely English.

The ProFuturo project, which is an ICT4E initiative, is a digital education project that targets the most vulnerable children in developing countries. Its goal is to promote equal opportunities through high-quality education for all by using locally deployed digital tools and reducing the digital divide. In Rwanda the project started in March 2019 with 36 schools and later scaled up to more 60 schools. The project supports 96 schools in 11 districts and 55 sectors in Rwanda. This year over 25,000 children in upper primary were reached.