Kigali, On 11th February 2020, Tech Enabled STEM Teaching (TEST) program was officially launched at FAWE girls school and other 149 schools national wide by the Minister of Education in a bid to meet the requirements for 21st Century Educational skills and 4th Industrial Revolution needs.

 The launch started with the exhibition of FAWE girls school artificial intelligence projects that highlighted how the model can improve the education sector and alleviate education barriers so that students will be able to acquire the 21st century and 4th Industrial Revolution education requirements. 

 In his remarks the minister of education Hon. Dr. Eugene MUTIMURA said that Rwanda initiated the gradual roll-out of the competency-based curriculum (CBC), to provide a more practical, skills-based approach to learning and orients schooling toward 21st-century skills for both teachers and learners as means of lessening science and technology education barriers.

 “Today we are demonstrating some of the approaches to over these barriers through: Launch of Tech-enabled teaching, teach capacity building, roll out of infrastructure and prioritizing teaching and learning STEM, specifically for the Girl Child. The need for more initiatives that promote STEM in education is paramount importance to leverage ICT in the education program to reach all schools, we will continue to use technology to enhance STEM teaching & learning through Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality as well as Robotic programming to facilitate the delivery of practical experiments”.

 Introducing innovative solutions to address existing challenges in the sector will act as a catalyst for achieving overall sector goals. Therefore, the Ministry of Education, initiated “Tech Enabled STEM Teaching” (TEST) to prepare STEM graduates to meet local and worldwide engineers and scientists’ requirements the Hon. Minister added.

 Speaking on behalf of other school of excellence head teachers, Sister Eugenia Kairaba, Principal of FAWE Girl's School said that having this program will not only increase technological skills of students but also will allow them to apply them to solve real life problems.

 “Let me take this opportunity to appreciate this initiative by the government of Rwanda through the ministry of education to launch this Tech Enable STEM Teaching program in the country. With the Competence Based Curriculum now used in Rwandan schools this program is very relevant and provides important tools for teaching aligned STEM subjects. Starting this tech enables STEM teaching programs in schools will be the means of motivating girl child to be effective in STEM subjects and try to apply it in real life problem. I feel committed to encourage other head teachers to adopt the program”.

 We are in the Information era, whereby successfully teaching and learning for effective impact on the job market requires a mastery of 21st century skills for both teachers and learners. These skills are defined as abilities that today's’ students/teachers need to succeed in their careers at this age of internet. In teaching and learning process, the paramount important 21st century skills are referred to as the 4Cs which are Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication Skills as well referred to as learning skills, most of the educators consider as essential for any career success.

 In line with the national slogan (Think big, start small and scale up fast), the latter program is to be gradually but comprehensively implemented in the limited number of schools (150 excellent schools at the beginning) for a monitored impact and informed plan to scale up.

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