22:50
rwandaexpress
World Vision Rwanda, on Wednesday officially handed over a brand new Technical Vocational Training (TVT) center (or school) to Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda, in order to help more local children access education and reduce school dropouts.
The four-housed center, put up in Kibeho sector, is expected to open door come January 2013, with its first intake estimated to 500 students, mainly hailing from 5 of Nyaruguru’s 14 sectors, namely Kibeho, Mata, Kivu, Rusenge and Munini.
The center’s student population is set to be a blend of dropouts from the country’s nine year basic education schools, children who did not get chance to continue with their studies and whoever else would like to register at the center.
At the beginning, students will have to choose from one of the following options to be run by the school, that is, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, leather technology plus ICT and entrepreneurship.
Nyaruguru district offered a piece of land worth Rwf 18,000,000 upon which the Kibeho-based TVT is constructed. World Vision then funded the construction of the school with US $519,000 (an estimated Rwf 315,552,000), a sum obtained through US-based Huron Hills Church & Moriah Fund.
The new vocational school will enroll students from neighbouring districts of Huye and Gisagara who will be getting some basic skills in vocational training.
For World Vision Rwanda, the construction of such a school matches, Rwanda’s Vision 2020, it’s a way of reducing poverty through forming a knowledge based economy.
“We want people who create jobs, not people who seek jobs”, said George Gitau, Rwanda’s World Vision Director.
And the message seems to have already had resonance among some of World Vision previous beneficiaries.
One of such people is Emmanuel Simugomwa, a man seemingly in his late thirties, who stood up − clad in a khaki suit and black leather shoes – in front of an over 500 people’s gathering to testify.
The chap, whose testimony astounded the audience, described how he started from scratch and went up to building himself a house worth Rwf 15 million, and getting equipments worth Rwf 3 million for his leather products’ business upon which hinges his livelihood.
Officiating at the function, Alphonse Munyantwali, Governor of Rwanda’s Southern Province, praised World Vision Rwanda for what he termed as “participation and collaboration with partners and beneficiaries”, which he said is different from the past “when not enough room was left to beneficiaries” – a situation that just used to put donors in a position of deciding what fits the beneficiaries and not the other way around.
The center is yet to get class equipments, but they are meant to have reached its premises some time before January 2013, availed by Workforce Development Authority (WDA) and the materials are expected to cost an estimated Rwf 400,000,000.
On his recent one-day work visit to Nyaruguru district in June, Rwanda’s Minister of State in charge of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr. Harebamungu Mathias, told this news website that the Rwandan government aims at having three operational TVT schools/centers in each of the 30 districts across the country by 2017 – part of the government policies under the seven-year term of office of President Paul Kagame since his resounding election victory in 2010 – to enhance job creation and skills development.
Minister of State Dr. Harebamungu also did point out that Rwanda plans to have TVT schools occupying 60 per cent of the whole secondary school education by 2017, the remaining 40 per cent being for general education like the teaching of sciences. This plan, Minister Harebamungu reiterated, is still “achievable”, five years to the deadline.
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