Catholic schools established in the 19th century were the first source of formal education in Rwanda. These schools taught African clergy and administrators, in addition to providing post-primary education for the masses. In a violent social revolution in 1959, a Hutu elite took power and the Tutsi elite lost their hold. After Independence in 1962, the first constitution of Hutu Republic declared that education will be free and obligatory. Major reforms were undertaken, and in theory, universal education was to be used to promote equality and social cohesion among community members. But in reality, these reforms perpetuated structural inequality on the basis of ethnicity, wealth and region. There was virtually no student retainment after primary school, owing to excessively high costs for secondary and tertiary education that could only be afforded by the wealthy elites.
There was an immense consciously crafted societal disconnect, as the entire system was oriented towards promoting a minority elite, cutting off from the masses, and inhibiting external cultures. Poor primary education did not prepare the students well enough to continue secondary education. Similar patterns were seen with students finishing schooling were inadequately prepared for employment opportunities. So, the rural youth pre-genocide had very less educational opportunities to avail.
On April 17th, 1994, after the death of the Rwandan President, a genocide was set into motion by the Hutu-controlled government and armed militia. 800,000 people were slaughtered including both the Tutsi minority and Hutu extremists, over a period of 100 days.
Several qualitative and quantitative studies today show that low secondary education levels are correlated with increased risk of violence. Armed rebellion has been linked with exclusion of non-elite, indigenous groups in education. It is also known that majority of the militia who carried out the genocide were undereducated, unemployed youth with few educational and employment prospects. Moreover, teacher centered, top-down pedagogy of the pre-genocide years promoted rote learning and emphasized less on critical thinking. This has said to form the genocide perpetrators' unquestioning and conformist behavior. Biases in the history of curriculum also perpetuated further inequalities.
Today, despite progress, Rwanda's educational policy and practice continues to propagate tensions in some ways.
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What steps should be taken by Rwanda's educational policy makers, teachers, and stakeholders to rectify this history of violence exacerbated through education?
Can you identify similar issues in education in your country? How should they be addressed?
To rectify this problem Rawanda needs to structure its school system in such a way that the poor minority of students is not cut off from learning essential information that will help them secure employment in the future
Education, conflict, and genocide is a good topic to discuss. Well, Rwanda's educational policy makers should make the students comfortable again with education and equip them with necessary skills that can help them survive in another conflict or to avoid any such conflict.
Thanks for writing about this - I read up some more on the history after reading your post. So even post-conflict, the Rwandan government's pedagogical methods have been mostly counterproductive and have failed to address the issues behind their history of violence. What they desperately need is the implementation of a pedagogy that encourages critical thinking and independent analysis (Hodgkin, 2006). Most locals state that they believe that they genocidal ideologies from before had been successfully implemented in Rwanda before because their education system had failed to develop skills they could have used to resist certain ideologies. I would suggest looking up Freire's banking concept, one that encourages blind and passive absorption of knowledge rather than critical thinking. Rwanda's government…
delinquency and child militarization are at height in our tribal areas due to negligent government in Pakistan.
I could relate it to what happens in our conflicted regions like FATA and Swat where Madrassahs are the mainstreams educational institutions and these institutions are the hubs of Taliban from where they recruit children and youth into their armed groups and use those children in promoting violence.