President Paul Kagame promises more TVET centers – KT PRESS

President Paul Kagame has promised that there will be more than one technical and vocational education (TVET) center in all 416 sectors of the country.

President Kagame made these comments on June 17, 2024, during an interactive press conference with Rwanda Television, during which a resident of Kirehe District (Louise Mukangango – a teacher by profession) asked a question about the government’s plans to improve technical education.

Mukangango thanked the President for his leadership that has improved the quality of education in many aspects such as increasing teacher salaries, number of children attending schools, construction of more classrooms (over 27,000) since Covid-19, access to school meals, regardless from how much the gaps in access to technical education were emphasized.

“Your Excellency the President of the Republic of Poland, I have a wish based on the efficiency of technical schools where children graduate and are able to create jobs and solve their problems. We are asking for the number of technical schools to be increased from one school in each sector to at least two,” Mukangango said.

In response, President Kagame said that so far, much has been done to establish TVET school in every sector, but more will be done soon.

“We want to do more and reach out to every place to bring these schools closer (to the community),” Kagame promised, noting that current progress shows that the coverage in all 416 sectors is 90%.

“But we don’t want to give up the remaining 10 percent. I promise we’ll speed it up. Thank you for raising this issue,” Kagame said.

In line with the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) 2017–2024), Rwanda has focused on improving technical education as part of its strategy to create more practical skills and jobs to achieve its goals of creating at least 1.5 million jobs per year.

Here, the government is focusing on ensuring that 60% of students are trained in technical skills and that 70% of students who complete technical studies find a job in the first year after graduation.