Views Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) Creating a better education system


in Rwanda Rebecca Clark, a Deputy Head Teacher from inner-city London, has swapped the concrete jungle for greener pastures. Now she trains Head Teachers in the leafy district of Rusizi, Rwanda, on a two year VSO placement. Rebecca shares her story.... I’m an Education Leadership Advisor in rural Rusizi,


Rebecca Clark British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA)


Tablet adoption continues to rise while barriers to


adoption shift BESA releases ‘Tablets and connectivity’ research It was this time last year


western Rwanda. Rusizi is near Lake Kivu and contains the Nyungwe Forest, one of the few remaining forests in the country and home to many chimpanzees. I work in thirty schools and visit around three schools per day to help senior


staff improve their planning, Teacher development and lesson evaluation. I help Head Teachers become better ‘Leaders of Learning’. Ultimately, a better education system creates more opportunities for Rwanda’s young people. I live in Kamembe which is the furthest town from Rwanda’s capital, Kigali


– a six hour bus ride away. When I get up, the first thing I do is check the weather! I live near a rainforest


and Rwanda has two rainy seasons. It rains most months apart from June, July and August. If it’s been raining all night, there’s a strong possibility I won’t be able to reach some of the schools the next day, but today I text my Head Teachers to re-confirm my visits. I don’t leave home without my waterproofs (jacket and trousers) or suntan lotion. I have to be prepared for all weathers! My ‘moto taxi’ picks me up around 7-30am. It can take between thirty minutes


and two hours to reach my schools. Today, I’ll spend five hours in transit as a passenger on the back of a motorbike. The travelling is ‘off road’ through fields, tea plantations and the occasional forest. I love my journey to school! On arrival at my first school, I’m immediately noticed by the pupils. They wave


at me from their classrooms. I try not to disrupt their learning, but it’s impossible not to. This school – like many others – has had a new classroom built in the last year. It’s made out of brick with a concrete floor. The class size is big – the children are cramped onto benches attached to their desks. The walls are scantily clad with a few posters made from rice sacks. This school still doesn’t have any electricity. A lack of resources and ‘teacher-


centred’ teaching is common. The pace is much slower here and things don’t often go to plan. I have to be flexible and not let it frustrate me. Change does not happen overnight. The Head Teacher warmly welcomes me before our coaching and mentoring


session. We talk about her action plan for the year and the progress the school has made in achieving its objectives. She also updates me on any results from the training I recently delivered. Next, the Head and I observe a Science lesson - the pupils are learning about


mammals today. VSO actively encourages Teachers to use teaching aids in their lessons to stimulate learning, but I didn’t expect a live goat to be paraded around the classroom – that’s a new one on me! Typically, I return from my morning school visits around 2pm, which is when I


stop for lunch. In Rwanda, you can’t just ‘grab a snack’ between school visits, as it’s considered rude to eat on the street in public. After work, week nights are generally spent at home. I usually cook dinner on


a two-hob electric cooker, but tonight there’s no power, so I’ll use my charcoal stove instead. When the power returns, I settle down for the rest of the evening and watch a


TV series on my hard drive, on loan from one of my fellow volunteers. Simply just being here, living and working among the local people is pretty amazing. It makes me feel very proud.


u020 8780 7500 uenquiry@vso.org.uk uwww.vso.org.uk/bethevolunteer/education


that BESA’s annual research revealed that pupils in more than half of all UK state schools have poor access to ICT and computers. The worrying part of the


data, collated from ICT co- ordinators at 727 primary and 498 secondary schools across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, was that rural areas were being identified as one of worst affected regions. It was a concern that students’ educational experience was being affected simply by the location of their school. Poor wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi) provision was cited as a


Caroline Wright


major problem in many schools with 65 per cent of primary schools and 54 per cent of secondary schools considering themselves under-resourced in terms of Wi-Fi provision. A significant minority of schools also reported that they were under-resourced in broadband provision (42 per cent of primary schools and 31 per cent of secondary schools surveyed). A year on and while our ‘Tablets and Connectivity’ survey


shows that the adoption of mobile technology in schools is increasing, 71 per cent of UK primary and 76 per cent of secondary schools (an increase from 56 per cent in 2014 in both school types) are now making use of tablets in the classroom. Currently, there are estimated to be 721,000 tablets for use by pupils in classrooms across UK maintained schools and academies, with predictions that by the end of 2016 this number will have increased to over 946,000. It is also interesting to note that while the stated barriers to


adoption are shifting slightly, with some citing the security and management and funding as issues, the fact remains that the digital divide based on location remains. Schools have noted little improvement in broadband


connectivity over the past year with only three percent more primary schools, 53 per cent, feeling that they have the ideal bandwidth (up from 50 per cent last year) and 65 per cent of secondary schools feeling the same (up from 62 per cent


in 2014). It is disappointing to see so many schools still struggling with


Wi-Fi and broadband connectivity issues. With nearly half of schools reporting poor connectivity we run the risk of failing to equip our young people with the essential digital skills that they need for their future careers. More needs to be done to improve Wi-Fi and broadband connectivity in our schools. However, our research shows there is an opportunity for


teaching schools, school leadership organisations and industry to work with schools to help them understand how they can utilise tablet technology to its full potential, and integrate tablets as learning tools into the classroom.


uFor information from BESA contact: uCaroline Wright u020 7537 4997 ucaroline@besa.org.uk uwww.besa.org.uk


July 2015 www.education-today.co.uk 7


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