Rwanda education system is set to go digital and as soon as June, according to Warren La Fleur, Microsoft’s regional education industry manager for West, East, Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands exclusive interview with The New Times.
Microsoft has been holding conversations with policy makers, teachers, faculty, and staff members in Rwanda know how they can apply digital technologies to empower the teachers and faculty to create new learning experiences for students and to transform education with digital technologies according to Fleur.
The Microsoft manager said that digitization of the education will bring better quality of education, introduce a modernised curriculum and the relevant education could then be imparted to the citizens of the country.
Students will be empowered with with digital tools, practices, and technologies so they can actively participate in their own learning.
“We advocate the notion of ‘anywhere any time learning’. You can imagine a student sitting on a bus or going home to their grandparents, why can’t we create an environment where that learning or acquiring new knowledge can happen anywhere they are? Digital technologies, connected devices enable those things to happen,” said the Microsoft manager.
Microsoft is working with a company called Positivo that is manufacturing devices in Rwanda and will work on the delivery of those devices to students to enable anywhere anytime learning.
“Ultimately, what we are trying to do is to build a platform that can help the ministry and teachers, and students in Rwanda really connect and engage in new ways such that both the cost of delivering education and the benefits of education could actually be optimized,” said Warren La Fleur.
The Rwandan government has a programme for rolling out computers to students in a computer delivery programme called One-Laptop-per-Child.
For the last three years the government of Rwanda has been working with Microsoft to bring digital education to the 3.2 million students in Rwanda; a smart classroom that will have devices, internet, new digital content, a modern curriculum, e-books, and new ways of assessing students.
Microsoft has been working on the digital content, the training of teachers, and the provision of devises into schools through working with different partners. The organization is in discussion with the Rwanda Education Board about deploying 3.2 million identities for the students across the entire primary and secondary education system.
