Rwanda child friendly schools

Table of Contents
A Nation Looks Ahead ............................................. 01
A Fresh Approach: The Child-Friendly Way ........ 03
Schools as Centres of Learning
and Centres of Care:
Six Ingredients for Success ............................................. 05
• Child-friendly means
a gender-sensitive environment ...................... 07
better teaching and learning ............................ 09
• Child-friendly means including every child ........... 11
promoting health and sanitation ...................... 13
• Child-friendly means student
participation, life skills, and caring ................. 15
• Child-friendly means involving the
community in management ...................................... 17
What Will it Take? ..................................................... 19
Text: Carole Douglis
Photos and Production: Giacomo Pirozzi

4
A nation looks ahead 1
A nation looks ahead
Goals for Education in Rwanda
“All Rwandans will be able to read and write
and have diverse professional and technical
skills. Rwanda will be endowed with an
education system that is well adapted to the
socio-economic problems of the country,
and ICT [information, communication and
technology] skills will be widespread”
Rwanda: Vision 2020
“Education represents about 26% of
Government recurrent spending. Education
spending has risen from 3.4 percent of GDP
at the beginning of the period to about 5
percent in 2007.”
Public Expenditure Review of the Education Sector,
Rwanda, July 2007
Rwanda has signed the 1990 Convention on
the Rights of the Child (CRC),
which includes both education and equality
of the sexes as basic human rights.
Planting or schooling?
I dropped out in Class Four. My mom told
me that I should work on the farm.
She thought school was not important.
Then the Head Teacher and Sophie, my
teacher, came to our house and convinced
her to allow me to go back to school.
My advice to children is that they should not
underestimate themselves because of
poverty and be discouraged from going to
school. I tell them they should study.
Even if you have a baby, you still need
to study because it’s in your interest to
prepare for the future.
Mukarimba, girl student at a Child-Friendly School
Rwanda’s national vision is to revolutionize its
economy, transforming it from subsistence-based to
knowledge-based in little more than a decade.
Since an information society depends on developing
people’s abilities, quality basic education for all is a
vital step — a step toward which Rwanda has made
tremendous progress. For instance, the nation has
recently achieved two milestones in educational
development: one of the highest primary-school net
enrolment rates in Africa and near gender parity. In
2007, 95 percent of boys and 97 percent of girls were
enrolled in school.
Major challenges remain, however, including high
dropout and repetition rates, low secondary school
attendance and a large gender gap in achievement.
Some telling numbers:
• The dropout and repetition rates both run in the
double digits: 14 percent of primary school students
dropped out in 2006. The same year, 18 percent of
primary school children repeated a grade.
• Only 52 percent of school-age children completed
the primary level in 2007.
• Only 13 percent of secondary-school-age children
moved on to secondary school in 2007.
• In 2007, only 15 percent of girls (compared to 29
percent of boys) who took the National Examination
after grade nine passed.
Supporting Rwanda’s vision
The UN, UNICEF and Rwanda’s development partners
are committed to supporting the government of
Rwanda to raise educational standards throughout
the country, most notably through the creation of
model schools, known as Child-Friendly Schools
(CFS). These schools encourage children to succeed
by introducing an improved school environment,
better teaching methods and psychological support.
The success of the child-friendly programme has
inspired the government to expand it from the initial
pilot of 50 to 400 schools - about one sixth of primary
schools - as well as to make child-friendly standards
the quality norms for all schools nationwide.
1

Transforming Tomorrow: Girls’ Education in Rwanda2

A Fresh Approach: The Child-Friendly Way 3
A Fresh Approach:
The Child-Friendly Way
From trauma to trust:
a huge role for a caring school
The genocide of 1994 and the spread of
HIV have had a huge impact on children’s
ability to trust in the future. Children whose
parents were killed, or who are living with
AIDS, view life as simply a walk towards
their grave; they feel stigma, rejection and
alienation from society.
Peter Nkurunziza, Education Advisor, CARE.
A 1999 UNICEF study found 96 percent of
Rwandan children had witnessed the 1994
massacres and 80 percent had lost at least
one family member; hundreds of thousands
were orphaned. Since then, HIV and AIDS
have orphaned thousands more.
Child-friendly schools are stepping in to
recreate networks of caring,
and help many Rwandan children
rediscover childhood as they learn.
2
Setting the standard: The Government of Rwanda
with support from UNICEF and other partners has
jumpstarted a movement for higher quality education
by establishing “Child-Friendly” schools. Built on
lessons learned around the world and customized
for Rwanda, child-friendly schools set high standards
for teaching methods and curricula, sanitation and
sports facilities, sports and extra-curricular activities.
They go far beyond academics: They are safe, clean,
healthy, and protective of all children.
Caring for children in need: Child-friendly schools
actively reach out to girls and vulnerable children
- children with disabilities, orphans, members of
child-headed households - who otherwise easily fall
through the cracks. They use many ways to care
for and support those in need, including peer-group
clubs, mentoring, and community activism.
Child-friendlysurroundings:Child-friendlyschoolsare
designed, literally from the ground up, to dramatically
increase the achievement and graduation rates of
primary students.
Instead of the typical dark, cramped classrooms and
bare dirt yards, they feature:
• airy buildings with large windows of glass
• basketball courts and soccer fields
• gardens and trees, water tanks, handwashing
stations, and potable water
• toilets separated by sex plus private bathing facilities
for girls
• a teachers’ resource centre, to be filled with
educational materials and used for training teachers
from neighbouring schools as well
• a vision to put in place wheelchair ramps or other
design features to make classrooms accessible to
everyone.
Not your typical teacher training: Perhaps even
more important, the teachers and directors of child-
friendly schools receive two weeks’ training on modern
teaching methods, plus training on gender, the use
of games for teaching cooperation and lifeskills, and
mentoring and counselling. Child-friendly teachers
are encouraged to use their own school and materials
to train teachers from a “cluster” of neighbouring
schools.

Transforming Tomorrow: “CHILD-FRIENDLY” SCHOOLS in Rwanda4
A model for hope. The Ministry of Education has
upgraded more than 50 conventional schools
into child-friendly ones so far. Because of their
demonstrated success, child-friendly principles are
now the official quality standards for the nation’s more
than 2,000 primary schools.1
The Ministry plans to
convert 400 by 2012.
1
MINEDUC Minimum Standards and Norms, 2007.
The children I teach, yes, they’re aware
we’re doing something new here.
They realise school is preparing them
to contribute to a society very different
from the past, and because of that, their
generation is able to turn its back now
on Rwanda’s sad history.
Juvenal Hagumimana,
Headmaster of child-friendly - Kawangire Primary School
Child Friendly Schools promote:
• a gender-sensitive school environment
that encourages girls’ participation and
prohibits sexual harassment and violence
• sports teams for both boys and girls
• improved teaching and learning
environment, including improved and
relevant curriculum
• psycho-social support to students,
such as mentoring and counselling
• emphasis on health
• protection and care of girls, orphans and
other vulnerable children, and inclusive
measures for all
• improved school governance,
with increased participation by students,
parents and other community members.

EASING THE ROAD TO GRADUATION FOR GIRLS 5
Schools as Centres
of Learning
and Centres of Care:
Six Ingredients for Success

Child-friendly means a gendersensitive environment 7
Educated women are essential to achieving a
knowledge-based economy. Beyond economic
contributions, they have fewer and healthier children,
educate them better, and are less likely to get HIV
than their unschooled peers.
But when the family budget is tight, parents will
likely send sons, not daughters, to school. Schools
themselves mirror society’s gender bias focusing
attention on the boys. Unheard and discouraged,
many girl students give up.
Challenges
• Disappearing schoolgirls: Today less than half
of Rwandan girls even graduate primary school.
While nearly all girls enrol initially, they drop out in
high numbers and are less likely to pass national
examinations at all levels than boys.
•“GirlswillFail:”Commonbeliefsthatgirlsarebound
to fail in math and science can become self-fulfilling
Child-friendly means a
gender-sensitive environment
3
Learning to be peers, learning to speak out
The Tuseme Club teaches children a lot.
Before, the girls swept the classroom alone.
Now we all sweep together. Boys and girls
are the same - we are equal.
Ndereyimana, boy at a child-friendly school
Thanks to Tuseme, we have become fearless.
Before Tuseme came we couldn’t talk about
problems like rape. Now when there’s a rape,
the Tuseme Club investigates and reports
it to our teachers who follow it up.
Ingabire, girl at a CFS
A kid in Tuseme won’t have any more problems
in class. Let’s say your dress is torn,
and you don’t want to come to school because
you’ll be mocked. You tell the Tuseme club and
then your peers will advise you.
Someone might give you a new dress.
Alphonsine, girl at a CFS
prophesies. In addition, low confidence among girls is
endemic in a culture where they are generally taught
from birth to be quiet and submissive.
• No privacy: Unisex latrines where boys tease girls,
or lack of toilets and washing facilities altogether, are
a particular concern for girls at puberty and account
for many dropouts. Some girls drop out after skipping
school during their menstrual periods each month
and falling behind.
• Housework: Many girls are simply too overworked
and tired to learn. Even when enrol, they are commonly
expected to cook, clean, wash clothes, and care for
siblings at home.
• Girls often stay home one or two days a week
to catch up on chores - getting further and further
behind in their schoolwork.

The School Campaign:
Creating Great Schools For All
The School Campaign, launched in 2007,
works to improve the quality of education
nationwide and thereby boost the
performance and completion rate of primary
and secondary-school students, particularly
girls. It is a five-year initiative of the Ministry
of Education (MINEDUC), UNICEF and other
partners.
Girls’ academic achievement now lags
behind that of boys, but educated women’s
contributions are essential to develop the
country.
The School Campaign gives Great School
Awards to schools that excel in teaching,
school environment, and governance,
and which measurably increase girls’
achievement, retention, and completion.
In conjunction with MINEDUC, Rwanda’s
First Lady presents the awards, which
include science laboratories and sports
facilities and equipment.
The awards are designed to speed
voluntary adoption of CFS norms in schools
around the nation.
Meeting the challenges
Child-friendly schools are by definition girl-friendly.
They:
• Encourage every girl: Child-friendly teachers
learn to draw out girls, usually taught from birth to
keep quiet. UNICEF partner Right to Play trains
faculty to use sports and games to help the sexes
understand each other while learning life skills such
as cooperation and teamwork.
• Help her succeed: Some schools offer tutoring
during weekends or vacations, to help those who fall
behind. In some schools, girls can choose a special
teacher to be their confidante and mentor.
• Teach her to speak up for herself: “Tuseme”
means “Let’s speak out” in Swahili. The Tuseme Club
is a key feature of every child-friendly school. The club
explicitly targets gender bias, gives both boys and girls
practice in speaking for themselves, and provides a
forum for solving problems that might otherwise lead
to dropout. FAWE, the Forum for African Women
Educationalists, developed the Tuseme method and
trains teachers how to facilitate it.
• Create a safe space for her. At school she is free
of sexual harassment and violence. She can see a
teacher about health or sexuality, and discuss family
or other problems.
• Follow her home: If a girl is indeed in danger of
dropping out, her teachers turn up at her house to
persuade her family to help her continue studying.
• And engage the boys: Child-friendly schools insist
on appropriate behaviour in students and teachers
alike. Attention to gender includes teaching boys that
girls have the same rights, and they must treat girls
with respect.

Child-friendly means better teaching and learning 9
Currently only about half of children finish primary
school. Fewer pass the national examinations
that would allow them to proceed to a public
secondary school. From offering better buildings to
banning bullying, child-friendly schools strive to create
an atmosphere where all children can succeed.
Challenges
• Physical environment: Conventional classrooms
can be unwelcoming, with as many as 70 children
crowded into an airless, dimly lit space with a dirt
floor. Arranged in rigid rows, desks are often too few,
so some children sit on the floor. Few schools have
adequate toilets, let alone playgrounds.
• Old-school style: Rwandese schools rely heavily
on dictation and rote learning. Little attention is paid
to schooling children with special needs. Discipline
often comes in the form of a stick.
Child-friendly means
better teaching and learning
4
Learning to be peers, learning to speak out
The Tuseme Club teaches children a lot.
Before, the girls swept the classroom alone.
Now we all sweep together. Boys and girls
are the same - we are equal.
Ndereyimana, boy at a child-friendly school
Thanks to Tuseme, we have become fearless.
Before Tuseme came we couldn’t talk about
problems like rape. Now when there’s a rape,
the Tuseme Club investigates and reports
it to our teachers who follow it up.
Ingabire, girl at a CFS
A kid in Tuseme won’t have any more problems
in class. Let’s say your dress is torn,
and you don’t want to come to school because
you’ll be mocked. You tell the Tuseme club and
then your peers will advise you.
Someone might give you a new dress.
Alphonsine, girl at a CFS
• Under-qualified teachers: Many teachers are
equipped with only the equivalent of a secondary
education. Few have been trained in modern
pedagogy or special education.
• Welcoming surroundings: The differences
are immediately evident. Large glass windows fill
classrooms with light and fresh air. Floors, walls,
ceilings are upgraded and built to withstand
earthquakes and floods. Desks are grouped to
encourage group work.
Children practice on fields for basketball, volleyball
and soccer. Gardens and trees feed students and
delight the eye.

• Teachers trained to inspire learning: Training
enables teachers to adopt “child-centred” methods.
They become comfortable leading discussions and
asking students to think rather than just memorize.
They encourage students to work in groups, and plan
and complete projects. In addition, many teachers
become mentors or otherwise actively care for
students.
• Respecting children’s rights: A school “code of
conduct” prohibits corporal punishment, sexual
harassment and bullying. Discipline is maintained
through discussion, and teachers learn to delve into
reasons for inappropriate behaviour.

Child-friendly means including every child 11
Orphans, children with disabilities, the very poor,
those who started late or dropped out early -
it’s easy for a school to allow these children to “sink
or swim” despite the fact that education is legally
compulsory. Child-friendly schools explicitly work at
keeping the vulnerable afloat.
Challenges
• Children at risk: Orphans and other vulnerable
children comprise over 80 percent of children. Many
of them drop out or need consistent support from the
school if they are to complete their
education.
• Children on their own: Because of the genocide
as well as AIDS, Rwanda has one of the highest
proportions of orphans in the world. While most are
cared for by extended family, some 100,000 children
including every child
5
To school at last
People with disabilities are rejected by society.
Families hide them away.
We found two little girls from the same family
- ages 9 and 10 - who can’t walk. We talked
to their parents. The father considered them
worthless and didn’t want to send them to
school. The mother wanted them to come to
school. But the problem was how to get them
here and back every day - they have to be
pushed in a wheelchair. So I asked neighbouring
students to bring them. Now they take turns.
Sometimes they do it at lunchtime too.
The girls are in Class One now, but they’re
learning to read and write. The mother is very
happy and the children excited.
All the parents, the whole community, must
be sensitized to support vulnerable children.
Ancille Mukarwaka,
Head Teacher, Murama Primary School
live in child-headed households, where an older
sibling, usually a sister, raises the others without
steady income or adult support.
• Children with disabilities hidden away:
According to the Adventist Development and Relief
Agency (ADRA), some 400,000 people in Rwanda live
with disabilities. Two hundred thousand are children.
Considered a shame to the family in traditional
Rwandese society, children with disabilities are often
kept at home.
• Children missing their chance: While many
students work inside the home, close to four percent
under the age of 15 are officially reported as working
for a living outside the home, often in tea plantations
or as domestics in others’ houses. CFS schools
help make arrangements so they can come back to
school.
Head Teacher Venantie Nyiragumiriza of Umubano
Primary School often spends Saturday morning
looking for out-of-school children in her community,
which includes many returnee and refugee families,
along with numerous orphans and other vulnerable
children. She encourages orphans, convinces
reluctant parents of the benefits of schooling - and
helps potential students get necessary school
supplies.
•Encouragingthevulnerable:Child-friendlyschools
actively seek out missing children. Teachers even
convince families to let pregnant students continue
their education - unusual in socially conservative
Rwanda. The whole school sometimes pitches in to
provide housing or grow food for vulnerable children.
• Mentoring and listening: Partners CARE, FAWE,
and ADRA train teachers in mentoring and counselling
to help students stay on track. Many students credit
a mentor, whom they choose, with helping them
succeed. “She’s like a new mother to me,” said one
17-year-old girl of her mentor.

• Seeing the child, not just the disability: Child-
friendly schools are the first in the nation to mainstream
children with disabilities, currently serving some 7500.
As necessary, teachers learn sign language, how to
work with visually impaired students and children with
a variety of physical and mental disabilities. They also
may convince parents, arrange transportation, and hold
meetings with the entire community on children’s rights.
• Offering a second chance: While all child-friendly
schools encourage dropouts to return, many of
them also offer a special “Catch-Up” school for older
students who had been at home, working, or on the
street. The Catch-Up programme offers classes one
to six in a condensed format of three years. “We teach
these students in a way that encourages them to ask
questions,” says Murama Primary School teacher
Nicodeme Rigendane. “We want their education
here to be in the spirit of discovery, with the students
knowing they always have the right to ask ‘why?’”
A back-to-school story
Every new school year we ask if there are any
children who didn’t show up. A few years ago we
found a 10-year-old boy who’d been out of
school for three years to earn money.
This boy had been pushing a man in a wheelchair
with a cart attached, loaded with jerry cans of
petrol. He pushed it up and down the hills to
Goma (in eastern Congo), to sell the petrol,
then pushed it back piled with goods like
women’s clothing. People with disabilities don’t
pay customs tax, so a lot of them cross the
border to do business.
The boy earned 300 FRW (about 60 cents) a trip,
and he made it two or three times a week.
He told me he used to ask God why he was born
into a poor family.
We got him back to school and provided
materials for him. Now he’s 14 and in Class Six.
He doesn’t have a lot of food.
But he’s always first in the class.
Venantie Nyiragumiriza, Head Teacher, Umubano School

Child-friendly means promoting health and sanitation 13
While it has made remarkable progress, Rwanda
still ranks among the poorest of nations.
Particularly in rural areas, chronic malnutrition is
pervasive, life expectancy short and many households
are vulnerable to shocks and fluctuations in world
food prices. Promoting health is one of the ways
child-friendly schools seek to soften poverty’s impact
and offer every child opportunity.
Challenges
• Malnutrition: An estimated 45 percent of
Rwandese children under the age of five are
chronically malnourished. This interferes with mental
development; in school-age children, it makes
concentration in school difficult.
• No Water: Most schools lack water for washing or
drinking. Without safe drinking water or water and soap to
wash with, children easily share communicable diseases.
promoting health
and sanitation
6
Not your usual club
They like the Anti-AIDS club because
apart from here, there is no place they can
get information about AIDS. When I ask them
questions, they respond well. In fact the answers
the give me are like those of adults,
yet they are still small children.
Collette Mukamukwiye, teacher, Rubingo Primary School
With what we know about modes of
transmission, we young people have a
responsibility to talk to our parents at home and
to people in the community about
the importance of fidelity.
Jean Claude, Rubingo Primary School

• No Sanitation: In Rwanda today less than 15
percent of the population has access to adequate
sanitation. At school, sanitation becomes more than
a health issue: where facilities are inadequate and
not sex-segregated, boys may lurk and tease girls.
The problem reaches a critical point at puberty;
menstruating girls often choose to stay home several
days a month, or drop out altogether.
• HIV and AIDS: While Rwanda’s HIV prevalence
rate is relatively low - three percent - girls are six or
more likely to become infected than boys. Despite
children’s need for information, Rwandese culture
generally discourages discussion of sex, especially
between parents and children.
• Nutrition: The World Food Programme (WFP) helps
provide hot meals in some child-friendly schools. In
food-insecure areas, “the lunchtime meal is a really
important incentive to children who almost certainly
have walked to school without any breakfast,” says
UNICEF Chief of Education Charles Nabongo. WFP
also works with schools to create gardens for food
for school as well as assists some 300,000 children
in 300 schools overall.
• Water for drinking and washing: CFS teachers
report a dramatic decrease in student absences due
to diarrhoea after they start boiling drinking water
and have hand-washing stations in place. CFS
also provides showers for girls to use during their
periods.
• Separated toilets and privacy: Adequate toilets
for each sex are part of the child-friendly program.
“Girls drop out of school too easily,” says Head
Teacher Eugenie Murenzi of Rubingo Primary School.
“Separate latrines give privacy. So at least being
embarrassed or teased isn’t added to their difficulties,
particularly at the time of puberty.”
• Preventing HIV and AIDS: Health clubs offer
HIV and AIDS education. “School, thankfully, is the
place where talking about such things as protecting
yourself can happen,” says Judith Ayingeneye, Head
Teacher at Busasamana. “We are taught that we
should not despise those who are infected,” says a
girl who describes herself as a singer and animator
for the Anti-AIDS club.

Child-friendly means student participation, life skills, and caring 15
• Sports fields and teams: All child-friendly schools
have facilities for basketball, soccer and volleyball.
They form girls’, boys’ and mixed teams. Teachers
sometimes appoint particularly shy girls to be team
captain as way of encouraging them.
• More than a game: Child-friendly school partner
Right to Play trains teachers in their “Red Ball”
curriculum that teaches life lessons through games. In
some schools, children now spontaneously organize
games during breaks, instead of wandering off
campus. Some schools start the day with games—
partly to encourage students to be on time.
• Speaking out: Partner FAWE trains faculty in the
Tuseme (“Speak out”) process.
The challenges
All children have the right not only to study and
be protected from harm, but also to play and to
express themselves. Play, sports, and the arts may
seem luxuries in a low-income country. But they are
vital for both individual and societal health. In a nation
violently divided not long ago, play, sport, and artistic
expression can build much-needed trust.
student participation,
life skills, and caring
7
More than study
You must study. But as a child you also have the
right to enjoy games and arts… Sports is key to
the process of making children healthy, physically
and mentally. That’s how they must be if they are
to participate in our country’s development.
Radogonde Ndjeru, Coordinator, Imbuto Foundation A house for a homeless child
When my mother died, my sister took care of us.
Then in 2000 she got married. After that we used
to stay wherever we could. But after awhile, we
came here and the students helped us
Felix, student at a childfriendly school
We talk to our parents about each case where we
want to help. When the parents are convinced,
they give us money. We collect the money and
donate it. Felix does not have either parent and
he didn’t have a place to stay. So we built him a
house. After that we gave him materials for the
house and for school.
John, school-mate of Felix
I know that I can never repay them but
they will always be in my prayers
Felix

Tuseme teaches children to investigate and analyze
real-life problems, express them to the community
through theatre, song and dance, and figure out
solutions. Popular with girls and boys in every child-
friendly school, Tuseme clubs dramatically boost girls’
confidence.
• Outlets for art and heart: Schools also host
clubs for health and hygiene, HIV prevention, visual
and performing arts, and peace building. No matter
the focus, they stress mutual support. One head
girl explains, “It’s sometimes easier for a girl or boy
to share what they’re going through with another
student. Then once we have talked it through in the
club we can arrange for them to get the help and
follow up they need from an adult they can trust.”
• Altruism at school: In one school, students got
together to grow vegetables from seeds donated by
parents. They give the manioc, corn and beans they
raise to orphans and other vulnerable children without
land. In other schools, students have taken the
initiative to build homes for child-headed households.
Partnership with CARE
“Out there, in a child-headed household,
a girl can be prey to anything,” says Peter
Nkurunziza. He heads the “Nkundabana,”
or ‘I Love Children” project that CARE has
initiated in child-friendly schools.
Nkundabana allows orphans to choose an adult
from the community to be their mentor and
advocate. The volunteer mentor visits the children
regularly and troubleshoots when needed.
“When a child needs help, the mentor brings
together the teacher and community members to
focus on that individual. The process creates
love in the school and in the community context,
Nkundabana is part of a series of safety networks,
along with peer mentoring, Tuseme, girls’ club,
that help that little girl feel secure. There’s always
someone she feels can listen to her. It’s unseen.
But it works.”
CARE trains volunteers in counselling, health
education, and advocacy. Today Nkundabana
assists 3,000 orphans and other traumatised
children in 20 child-friendly schools.
The project is designed to become self-
sustaining within a few years, when child-headed
households begin to mentor others.

Child-friendly means involving the community in management 17
When parents become involved with school,
they are more likely to help their children
succeed. Conversely, a dynamic school can catalyze
community development.
Challenges
• School/community divide: Schools were
traditionally seen as their own domain. Neither
parents, students nor community members took part
in school decision-making, and the school steered
clear of affairs beyond its walls.
• Limited recordkeeping: Conventional schools
often lack clear records of attendance; multiple
absences - a sign of impending dropout - can go
unnoticed. If a student does drop out, school officials
often do not investigate.
• Gender issues: Head teachers are commonly male,
unaware of girls’ needs, and prone to perpetuating
gender bias.
• Turning it upside down: In a hierarchical society
with a strong tradition of top-down authority, the
child-friendly system turns decision-making upside
down. As Head Teacher Ancille puts it, “When I see
the child-friendly school, I see that he who is first must
be the last. To succeed, the director has to be not
at the head, but underneath everyone. Collaboration
between director, parent, teacher, student - that’s
what makes a child-friendly school.”
• Calling on parents: Child-friendly schools have
active Parent-Teacher Associations elected by all
parents. PTAs help make decisions, raise money, and
organize parents to volunteer labour to implement a
mandatory School Improvement Plan. Women are
particularly encouraged to join.
involving the community
in management
8
Partnership with parents
In the management of this school,
we do not do anything without first consulting
parents and getting their support.
We have a parents’ committee composed of
seven people. We think together, we decide
together, we do everything together. We had
an issue and we concluded that we had to
make a big step. Fortunately the other parents
are dedicated to supporting the decisions we
make. We decided to build a wall around the
school compound to stop people from outside
wandering through. Now we no longer have
people coming through.
Venantie Nyiragumiriza,
Head Teacher, Umubano Primary School
Look at this wall - It is an initiative of the parents.
They are the ones who literally dug up the stones.
They also paid workers who built the wall.
Emmanuel Nkeramugaba, Head of PTA, Umubano

• A parental hand: In various schools, parents have
completed projects including:
• building a wall to keep the school compound safe
from human intruders as well as sheep and goats
• creating sports fields
• contributing funds and labour to renovate and
paint classrooms
• planting shade trees
• creating and terracing a school vegetable garden
• farming and selling produce and pigs; contributing
the proceeds toward uniforms and materials for
orphans and vulnerable children
• helping sensitize communities about child rights
and welfare.

What will it take? 19
Based on the success of the 50-plus model schools
that UNICEF helped create, Rwanda’s Ministry of
Education has written child-friendly principles into the
standards for all schools.
The UN and its partners are already assisting the
government make those standards a reality, but
resources are needed:
• For a school: Implementing the entire child-friendly
package, including facilities and training, costs about
$200,000 per school.
• Countrywide: Converting Rwanda’s more than
2,300 primary schools to child-friendly status would
therefore come to approximately $460 million.
In a country with few resources other than its
people, can educating children wait?
What will it take? 9
Forming Future Leaders
Becoming child-friendly transforms a school from
a mere collection of buildings. The Child Friendly
Schools are effective and affordable -and in
Rwanda they are providing a firm foundation
on which to build the nation in peace and
reconciliation.
Students from these schools will be stronger in
every way... equipped with skills to deal with the
challenges of life, to be productive. Because of
this, increased tolerance and the knowledge of
how to live together in peace, they’ll make great
leaders, filled with love for themselves and their
country. This will help in taking Rwanda forward in
the right direction - and ultimately to contributing
positively to the image of Africa.
Joseph Foumbi, Representative, UNICEF Rwanda
Acronyms
ADRA Adventist Development and Relief Agency
CFS Child-Friendly School
FAWE Forum for African Women Educationalists
FRW Rwandan Francs
HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus
ICT Information Communication Technology
MINEDUC Ministry of Education
UN United Nations
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
WFP World Food Programme

For more information, please contact:
Chief of Communications and External Relations
UNICEF Rwanda
Email: kigali@unicef.org

Rwanda child friendly schools

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