Rwanda: Education goes digital

It’s a busy day at the multimedia production studio of the Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB)–an institution established by the government of Rwanda to support the quality of education.

A graphic designer is coloring a storyboard that has been created for one of almost 200 educational entertainment–or edutainment–episodes for children in pre-primary education up to grade 3.

A team of animators discusses the storyboarding process for a new episode; a team of video editors reviews recordings featuring sign language interpreter Joy Mirembe, who is being filmed standing in front of a green screen, as she’s signing off on a script for an episode.

Down the hall, two voice-over artists who play characters named Bakame, a talking rabbit, and Manzi, a young boy, are recording in a sound booth. The episodes are a hit among students, teachers and parents alike.

Supporting Rwanda’s digital transformation in education

Rwanda launched the edutainment learning program in 2019, with support from the World Bank. The aim of the audiovisual lessons is to foster core literacy and numeracy skills, science concepts and social-emotional skills.

This was considered particularly important for Rwanda, where a large proportion of children are not enrolled in pre-primary education.

When the COVID-19 pandemic led to school closures in 2020, disrupting learning for over 3.5 million students, the possibility for learning to take place anywhere at any time gained new importance.

A GPE COVID-19 grant of US$10 million for 2020-2022, implemented by the ministry and managed by the World Bank, accelerated Rwanda’s educational technology development and ensured that students could continue learning remotely. The funding supported efforts already underway to produce and broadcast edutainment episodes.

A GPE Multiplier grant of $30 million along with $100 million in cofinancing from the World Bank for 2022-2026 are further supporting development, dissemination and use of the episodes. To date, 96 lessons have been recorded, and 96 more are being produced.

In line with Rwanda’s goal to make education more inclusive, all episodes are being embedded with sign language. To ensure high quality signing, REB works with teachers who teach in sign language as well as signers that have trained with Rwanda National Union of the Deaf.

Enriching early learning

The digital content is expected to help improve school readiness and development of foundational learning. The episodes are fun to watch and cover a range of topics:

• the alphabet (Kinyarwanda, English)
• counting
• physical activity
• creative arts (drawing, puppetry)
• science (animals, computers)
• social skills (how to greet people, sharing, the national flag, moral and cultural values).

As the episodes are meant to supplement teaching in classrooms, teachers need to know how to incorporate them into lessons. Over 30,000 pre-primary to grade 3 teachers have completed training in digital literacy through e-learning courses to ensure optimum use of new digital resources, such as the edutainment episodes.

Local production of context-relevant and inclusive content

All audio and video content is posted on the Rwanda Basic Education Board YouTube channel and e-learning platform, shared with schools for use by teachers, and sent to private and government radio and TV stations for broadcast.

It takes about one month to produce an episode that ranges between 5 to 12 minutes. Production is coordinated by the REB with the engagement of local artists, animators and script writers, including recent graduates from higher learning institutions.

The episodes are made engaging with colorful animations featuring humans as well as animals familiar to Rwandans. Backgrounds include scenes of modern and village life.

The episodes incorporate popular games that children play, which helps students relate to and connect with what they’re watching, and they use original songs, which students enjoy hearing and singing.

Sign language is incorporated into the episodes to make them accessible to deaf children, and audio makes the episodes accessible to blind children.

Content is reviewed by specialists at REB to ensure that it reflects an inclusive and gender-sensitive approach to address existing stereotypes in schools and communities.

Using information technology to transform teaching and learning

The episodes are one component of Rwanda’s sector plan to use ICT to transform teaching and learning and help improve education quality.

Planned activities apply to all levels of education and include equipping schools with smart classrooms, boosting teaching skills in ICT and developing more digitalized content.

Digitalization is part of the country’s strategy to strengthen the quality and relevance of education, and to better prepare students to meet the requirements of the diverse labor market demands.

Also, the use of digitalized curriculum materials and flexible distance learning packages are intended to be more cost-effective and allow a wider range of learners to participate.

With more episodes in the works, children, teachers and parents look forward to new topics, storylines, animations and songs. Meanwhile, the ministry of education continues to work on improving connectivity and getting the content to as many viewers as possible.

When considering future episodes, Joan Murungi at REB thinks about the potential to help teach children about Rwanda’s history, particularly the genocide that took place in 1994.

She explains, “When Rwanda has a mourning period for the genocide, many young children do not know or understand what happened, and parents have difficulty explaining.” She and her team are exploring how episodes could teach what happened as well as share messages about prevention.

Thanks to the edutainment episodes in particular, children are captivated by lessons, parents are increasingly engaged in their children’s education, and teachers have a new tool to energize classrooms.