The QIWG met on Tuesday afternoon, with 2 main agenda items:

1) Reconstitution of QIWG under Rwanda Education Board (REB)
2) Preparations for Quality Summit

The QIWG is now officially under the leadership of Rwanda Education Board, with meetings lead by John Rutaisire (head of REB). Membership was discussed and it was agreed that it should stay the same for now on the basis that the group functions most effectively with limited membership. If there are members of RENCP who feel that QIWG would benefit from more representation from RENCP, please feel free to get in touch and I’ll raise it at the next QIWG meeting. Either way, I will of course endeavour to keep RENCP updated as meetings happen, and ask for input before meetings as well. My feeling is that it would be useful to have QIWG updates as a standing item on the agenda for the various sub group meetings, so that if those groups feel there is a quality area that they wish to have raised, those can be fed in, in good time. The group will in the future act as a sub cluster group (in the same way as the TVET sub cluster for example), feeding in to the development partner and cluster meetings that happen every quarter.

On the quality summit, we have agreed to constitute a coordination task force. I have discussed with Kirsten, but if you feel you or your organizations have the capacity to contribute to organization of the Summit, please let me know (by sms is fine) and I’ll ensure that you are invited to future meetings. In addition, with 5 ‘cluster themes’ to be discussed at the summit, we have decided on ‘cluster theme working groups’ to ensure that these all run to plan. This will involve ensuring that speakers suggested are still available and that funding is in place (not from your organization, but from whoever has agreed to fund that particular speaker); that the standard template for presentations is shared with those speakers; that they share an abstract of their presentation before the summit – and that this is ‘vetted’ for appropriate content; that the cluster session is well organized – in terms of discussions around presentations, note taking etc; and that the way in which the outcomes of each session will be shared with plenary is agreed in advance. As a reminder, the 5 cluster themes are:

1. (In plenary) Regional Perspective on improving education quality. Cluster group lead by Janvier (Quality and Standards director, REB)
2. Inside the school and classroom: improving teaching and learning. Cluster group lead by  Evode (ICT director, REB)
3. Literacy, Language and Reading. Cluster group lead by Joyce (Curriculum director, REB)
4. Assessing Learning Achievement. Cluster group lead by Christine (Science and Technology Advisor, MINEDUC)
5. Teacher Training and Teacher Motivation. Cluster group lead by Damian (Teacher Development and Management Director, REB)

Currently RENCP participation is there for all themes except the first which is being coordinated by UNICEF (VSO for themes 2, 3 and 5; Wellspring for 4). The groups should only consist of 1 or 2 development partners, as the hope is that REB takes the lead here and we don’t want to overwhelm them! That said, if your organization has the capacity and willingness to help out on one of the groups, please let me know (sms is fine) and I’ll let others know and make sure you’re invited to future meetings. Please be aware though that with the Summit 5 weeks away, this will be very work intensive (probably 2 meetings a week).

As always, please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or need any clarification.

Charlotte Phillips
Senior Programme Manager – Education
VSO Rwanda
Telephone: + 250 (0) 788 577 932
Email: charlotte.phillips@vsoint.org