Africa-Press – Rwanda. Rwanda is considering hiring teachers from Zimbabwe as the government seeks to fix longstanding skills gaps, language barriers following multiple reforms of its education sector.
While it is not yet clear how many teachers the country would source and timelines, President Paul Kagame told a joint trade and investment conference held in Kigali last week that his country needs quality teachers urgently as the two countries explore mutual beneficial business opportunities.
“I think Zimbabwe can offer us good teachers. So please work on that with a sense of urgency. Whatever number you find of quality teachers I think we can absorb because we need them. We need them urgently,” President Kagame said while addressing members of the two countries private sector groups and government delegates.
Recently, Rwanda froze all public service recruitments except for teachers as the Education Ministry works fill over 13,000 vacant teaching positions.
Schools in Rwanda reopen on October 11 amid pressure to recoup learning losses registered under the just-concluded year characterised by pandemic induced closures.
While the current shortage of teachers is partly blamed on the pandemic, which saw the sector lose a section of experienced teachers who quit the profession, the massive school infrastructure expansion since 2020 under the joint government project with World Bank necessitated over 25,000 additional teachers.
