VVOB has contextualised the UNESCO toolkit on Supporting teachers in back-to-school efforts, to adapt it to the needs of school leaders in Rwanda.
6 dimensions of opening schools
Initially, school reopening was planned in September 2020, but no one is sure yet if reopening will still take place as planned. The Rwandan Government recently declared that it will be cautious ahead of reopening schools in September. As the Government still assesses the possibilities for reopening, school leaders together with sector education inspectors (SEIs) have started to prepare for reopening in light of the toolkit.
Released in June 2020, this toolkit is a guide to school leaders to ensure safe environment to students and teachers during and post COVID-19 lockdown. Through an approach of professional learning communities (PLC) used by VVOB, school leaders share and discuss strategies to ensure school safety, security, and cleanliness of the school environment; ensure online teaching and learning and preparation for schools to reopen.
The toolkit introduces the six dimensions of school reopening that are addressed in PLC sessions. For each dimension a series of actionable guiding questions and a checklist are proposed to sector education inspectors (SEIs) that facilitate the discussions and the sharing of experiences and good practices. At the end of each session, follow up actions are documented for the school improvement plan that will guide school leaders when schools reopen.
The six dimensions of school reopening:
- Teacher preparation and learning
- Safety and health
- Dealing with Psychological and Socioemotional Well-Being related challenges
- Social dialogue & communication for school re-opening
- Gender equity strategies equity strategies as cross cutting dimension
- Monitoring and evaluation as crosscutting dimension
Inspiration from the toolkit
Theophile Hakizimana is an SEI in Bweyeye sector, Rusizi district, where he leads a PLC of eight school leaders. According to him the toolkit serves as a good reference as they discuss different measures to prevent COVID-19 once schools open their doors. “The guiding questions and checklists outlined in the toolkit are very helpful, they made us think wide,” he said.
Mr Hakizimana together with school leaders in his sector discussed each dimension highlighted in the toolkit and identified related challenges, then proposed solutions given the realities on the ground.
“For instance, on the first dimension ‘teacher preparation and learning’, we realised that online and distance learning has not been going well in our area. Only few parents have ICT devices such as smart phones and/or computers. Some of those who have the devices cannot afford to buy internet bundles regularly. Other parents are just careless, even when they can afford a radio set or an ICT device—they don’t understand the value of the learning programmes. As a result, the number of children who follow Rwanda Education Board (REB)’s learning programmes remains low. Moreover, a limited number of teachers have internet enabled devices while others lack enough knowledge to use the devices for online teaching and learning especially aged teachers.”
“We agreed to work mainly with village leaders to mobilise parents to change their mind about their children’s learning. At least every family should buy a radio. We will address parents mainly during monthly community work umuganda, which currently focusses on classroom construction and takes place at village level on rotational basis due to COVID-19. School leaders also agreed to encourage their teachers to buy smart phones, at least those who can afford it. We also plan to advocate to REB to facilitate teachers to buy computers—to get loans for computers for instance. At the same time, we will ask REB to increase training for teachers in digital literacy,” Mr Hakizimana said.
Setting strategies
Louise Ayinkamiye is a head teacher at G.S Kagano in Musanze district. For her, the toolkit for school leaders showed a direction to follow as they prepare for school reopening. “We were waiting for the Ministry of Education to give us instructions on school reopening, but the toolkit awakened us and shed light on what we need to do as school leaders ahead of school reopening,” she said.
“We meet as school leaders to discuss issues that can impact school reopening, share experiences and suggest possible solutions to the identified problems. One of the main challenges that repeatedly came out during our discussions, is drop out. Some students moved to different places to look for jobs, so those may not come back when schools open. It will also be hard for students whose parents lost their jobs due to COVID-19. We have to work with teachers, parents and local leaders to ensure all students come back to school after the COVID-19 disruption. We will hold meetings at different levels to talk about this issue.”
“Regarding safety and health, installing hand washing facilities and buying hand sanitisers is our first priority, although we don’t have a budget for this yet. We also discussed social distancing in a classroom when students are back. We had 23 classrooms with more than 1,700 students before the COVID-19 closures. This means that two or three students would sit at one desk, but this has to change—no more than one student at a desk anymore, if we are to respect a one meter distance. To address this, the Ministry is already building a new school nearby where we will send some of our students. Obviously, we don’t have a solution to every problem, but having identified major issues on each of the seven dimensions, is the first step. We will eventually find solutions as we continue to discuss as a team and involve different stakeholders,” Ms Ayinkamiye said.
Access the toolkit.
