There is very little doubt that recovery of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide is simply a miracle. Who would have believed that this African country, totally dependent on international aid, would become one of the most promising countries in terms of stability, economic growth, health and education?
What really caught me by surprise during my visit in Rwanda, was finding in the middle of nowhere, by Lac Kivu, 2 children quietly walking with the famous One Laptop Per Child, XO laptops, designed by the MIT LAB team led by Nicholas Negroponte.
The looks were of ordinary Rwanda kids in the rural area, so I could guess it was a gift from a foundation or a NGO in the area. As we drove on the way I saw another group with green laptops.
It was a group of 15 pupils all wearing clean blue and white uniforms quietly moving their way towards their schools not too far from there. I decided to stop and walked toward them to understand how they acquired these laptops and more importantly how they use them.
That s when I learned that the ministry of education in Rwanda has been running a program working on the integration of technology in schools, which starts in primary school with the XO laptops.
This program started in 2008 with the deployment of a pilot program of 10,000 machines, which covered mostly schools from Kigali, the capital, Rwamagana a semi rural city about 40 minutes away from Kigali and Bweyeye a very remote rural area.
According to officials in the OLPC program, both Rwamagana and Bweyeye were selected to find out the requirements for a deployment of the project in rural areas and its impact on the students and the teachers. The schools in Kigali were also sampled to find out how the introduction of laptops in primary school would impact education and especially how they would change the role of the teachers.
Today Rwanda has deployed 80,000 laptops in 141 schools all around the country and most of these laptops are in the hand of students in rural area, learning using a constructionist approach. This is a process where the students learn by doing in a graphic rich, interactive, playful environment enhancing their retention capacity, their attention and their interest in learning.
Rwanda is targeting all students from primary 4 to primary 6 in public and semi public schools. These are about 1 million pupils all awaiting their turn to be reached. When back in Kigali, I was able to meet with the One Laptop per Child Team at the ministry of education and as you can imagine I had tons of question for them.
I learnt that the pilot project met several challenges; one of them was to ensure that these laptops are reformatted prior to distribution to ensure that enough activities (courses) are loaded so students can immediately engage in various courses.
These courses are then complemented by interactive multimedia lessons loaded on a school server, which connects to the laptops though a wireless local area network. Aside from basic ICT lessons and programming lessons, the OLPC program focus on the enhancement of teaching mathematics, English and science.
Through flash animation, you witness pupils going through a biology course where they can visualization the process of briefing or the functioning of a heart. What I find the most fascinating with Rwanda is the ability to invest in its future stability, economic growth and competitiveness.
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