The OLE team is working closely with Ministry officials to develop a pilot project for introducing the Shuttleworth  k-12 open source courseware to Rwanda.   This will include adapting the Shuttleworth curriculum content for local Rwandan conditions and standards, preparing teachers to use the courseware effectively, providing ongoing in-service support for the teachers in their schools and assessing the effectiveness of this approach in improving the quality of basic education in Rwanda.

Rwanda is deeply committed to employing Information and Communications Technologies (ICT’s) in virtually every aspect of their society and economy.  The long awaited SeaCom undersea fiber optic cable was placed into operation in Kenya this past week.  It connects East and South Africa to the rest of the world by a huge highspeed Internet link.  In Rwanda the SeaCom cable will be connected to a fiber optic network that is being laid throughout the country.   The government has announced that it will provide every school in the country with a broadband connection in the next two years.   They have said they intend to become “the Singapore” of Africa.

“I am extraordinarily impressed with the strength of the commitment in Rwanda to major improvements in basic education,” said Dr. Rowe.  “It is impressive how much the country has changed in the past few years, especially given the violence that ravaged the country just a few years ago.  The mood here combines a sense optimism with a determination to implement their ideas quickly and effectively.  Nearly half of the population is under 20 years of age, making their education a cruciald part of Rwanda’s future.”

OLE Rwanda is seeking the support of the government for this project with the understanding that they will expand it significantly if there is evidence that it is a cost-effective approach.  The OLE International team will return later this week, via Dubai, to North America.

Modeled after Consumer Reports, each innovation in the Review will include a narrative report describing the innovation, its demonstrations and the outcomes from those demonstrations.  Each review will highlight the evidence that a given innovation is effective for a given purpose in a given setting.  Reviews will include overall approaches to learning, specific subject matter course materials and information and computer technologies that are appropriate for basic learning.

A key feature will be a summary template with standardized ratings covering several dimensions of the innovation including results related to students, teachers, parents, community and the nation. This will enable users to compare the relative effectiveness of different innovations.   Each review will also provide an estimate of the total cost per student and the scalability of the innovation.

1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A Study of Models of Affordable Computing for Schools in Developing Countries. This page gives you an overview of the presentations and links to several versions of the video. This video is the one they recommend using.
2. Low-cost ICT devices in Education: Hope, Hype and Heuristics. The overview page for this video is not working at the moment but you can open the video here.

You can also go here for a complete list of the World Bank’s Archived Webcasts of e-Development Seminars

Anyone who is involved in projects providing information and computer technology (ICT) solutions to schools in developing countries should know about these studies. At OLE we are interested in finding pathways that lead to Universal Basic Education (UBE) by 2015. While we strongly believe that ICT will play a vital role in achieving this goal, it is important to make sure that new educational models are developed that can realistically scale to reach every child in a given country with the level of support the government is willing and able to provide.

The Honorable Theoneste Mutsindashyaka, Minister of state in charge of Primary  and Secondary Education in the government of the Republic of Rwanda, wrote to the registering agency to express his support. He said, in part, “OLE Rwanda’s projects are aligned with the country’s Vision 2020 and add value to the achievement of universal basic education in Rwanda.” He noted that OLE Rwanda is cooperating with the Ministry of Education in “two important projects,

• Contextualization and localization of content for basic education,
• Digitization of the content to support and avail teaching and learning materials through the development of a Billion Kids’ National Digital Library.”

The Minister visited the OLE offices in Cambridge, MA this summer and tried out an early version of the Course Development Studio. He noted with interest that the software could be localized for Kinyarwanda, the official language of Rwanda, and said that this would vastly increase its importance for teachers throughout the country.

OLE Rwanda works in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth. The mission of OLE Rwanda is integrated in the Rwandan Education Sector Strategic plan 2006 – 2010 (ESSP) for basic Education. This plan also empowers young people to participate actively in the government’s poverty eradication programme (Vision 2020 Umurenge) through human capacity building projects.

OLE Rwanda has an impressive Board of Trustees led by Chairman Bizimana Muhebera. Chairman Muhebera is the Director of Library at the Kigali Institute of Education. Murinda Muzira Jacques is the new Executive Director for OLE Rwanda.

The first areas of concentration for OLE Rwanda will be the creating and describing digital content for the Rwandan education system so that it can be shared quickly and freely by teachers all over the country, and developing and deploying a peace building curriculum for basic education.