Timothy Williams. DSA 2015

1. Oriented Towards Action:
The Politics of Improving Education
Quality in Rwanda
Timothy P. Williams, PhD
Honorary Research Fellow
School of Environment, Education and Development
University of Manchester, UK

2. Introduction
• Formal education in Rwanda
– Core to economic and social development
• Access vs quality:
– More children from poor households have more
access to more years of schooling
– Low literacy and numeracy; low completion rates;
repetition rates increasing
• Argument:
– The drivers that have led to Rwanda’s most impressive
gains have also presented a set of challenges to
improve education quality

3. Dominant developmentalist framework
• Incentives rest with longer term goals rather
than shorter term rent extraction
– Good governance
– Decentralization of service delivery
– Performance contracts
• Coalition for primary education
– Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, DFID,
Cabinet, and President of the Republic

4. Key reforms and outcomes
• Key reforms
– 9-Year Basic Education (2008)
– English language (2008)
– 12-Year Basic Education (2010)
• Primary school outcomes
– Enrollment: 88% in 2012
– Low levels of literacy and numeracy
– Completion rate: 76% in 2010 to 61% in 2014
– Primary repetition rate: 18% in 2013

5. Illustrations from fieldwork
• Decentralization policy:
– Empower PTC and head teachers
– Innovation by schools
• Incentives:
– Performance contracts: measurable outputs (e.g.
classroom construction) rather than learning outcomes
• Teacher training and recruitment:
– Re-centralization of teacher training to improve English
– Challenge of attracting enough qualified teachers
– Low financial incentives for teachers in rural areas

6. Provisional conclusions: Oriented toward action
• Longer term goals rather than rent extraction
• But why aren’t education outcomes better?
– ‘Oriented toward action’ ≠ coherent policy approach
• Performance contracts: outputs vs outcomes
• A case of ‘high modernism’?
• Expanding access is politically popular and easier
– “You can’t have quality without access”
– Social development