Special Education in Rural Rwanda

Coming from a special education background in the United States where you take data and try hundreds of interventions and parent meeting to help a student achieve the most they can, I was curious when coming to Rwanda what the special education would be like. And I have to say, I was surprised in both good and bad ways.

When I went to Bali, I quickly learned that when a child is born with a disability or needs special assistance for things it brings great shame on your entire family. Because most people believe in reincarnation in Bali, they believe the family is being punished for something your past life, or ancestors have done. This leads to a cultural norms of children being sent to boarding schools and mostly ignored by their families to avoid the shame their presence will bring on the family. I happy to say this is not the case in Rwanda. I happily surprised to see children with disabilities are accepted in my community and treated relatively the same, but this wasn’t what I saw when I first arrived.

I quickly realized that several my students have disabilities that prevent them from participating in all of the activities in the classroom. I also realized that my fellow teachers have no training on how to help them in the classroom, so they students go ignored most of the time. A few teachers even thought it was funny that I would take extra time while the students were working to specifically help these students understand the material. I quickly found that this attitude wasn’t because they didn’t think these students were important, but that they simply didn’t have and tools to help them and frankly, they don’t have extra time either.

After being trained extensively in the United States to adapt lessons to different students and help every student in my classroom, I was slightly appalled at the lack of support for some students, especially when it was required by the education department.

Disclaimer: I would also like to point out that this is not always the case and that I am drawing from my experiences only. I do not know how every school operates in Rwanda. I would also like to say there are special education schools and even entire schools for blind and deaf students, but these are only private boarding schools that families have to pay for.

Understanding that my teachers needed simple tools they could use to help these students I started racking my brain for ideas. How do you support a student who has no diagnosis, no way of communicating their needs to you, and having no ability to test the different things they can and cannot do. I simply began observing them, praising them for everything they could do and starting to get them to try to participate in activities. I quickly found that my students were just as capable as the other students, but have trouble writing and seeing the blackboard to write notes.

I quickly saw one of my students confidence grow at a rapid rate. Teachers even started mentioning how she never spoke in class before and would never come to the board and now everyday she’s the first hand that will be raised for any activity. Some days she still uses another student to speak to be, knowing our language barrier is even more extreme.

After seeing the abilities of my students, I thought of a plan. They are able to answer questions correctly, but their writing abilities held them back, especially during tests and exams. In our classrooms when we give an exam we write the entire exam on the blackboard, they students have to copy the exam onto notebook paper and then take the exam. This adds a lot fo time to tests and if your ability to write is compromised you will probably only finish half the exam. The solution was simple, give them a prewritten exam and prewritten copies of the notes from class. While this may seem extremely simple, it does take extra time to do, so we are still working on all teachers do this, but we are slowly getting there. This simple accommodation also started the conversation about having different expectations for them, maybe they don’t need to answer all 20 questions.

I am so lucky to have my amazing co-teacher Celestine to support these efforts. She is also our schools Inclusive Education Advocate through a new organization that just came to our school. This organization has come to help promote inclusive education in rural villages by helping students who cannot function in a general education classroom pay to go to a specialized school for them. This is also how I discovered the disabilities in out community do not stop at my students alone, but that the majority of students with severe disabilities stay home and never receive an education do to their inability to keep up with the rest of the students.

This also brings me to the other end of the spectrum, my over achievers. Since it is common to repeat grades in Rwanda I have some students who have taken the same class 3 years in a row, making them the experts when it comes to language. I also have students whose parents already speak English, making it easier for them to learn the language. While many teachers, like in the United States, teach only to these students and expect the others to catch up or let these students finish early and be bored, I decided to try something a little different, with some mixed results. Realizing I had a large group of students who were finishing way before the others and sat bored at there desks, I created a Special Homework Notebook. Everyday I write down a homework assignment based on what we did in class and hand the notebook to the first student who finishes their work. As other students finish they write the assignment in their notebooks and complete it. When they finish an assignment they find me and a put a start under their name. After 14 assignments the receive a sticker (they’re favorite reward). This gives students extra work to keep them occupied and gives them a chance to work for a reward they love. Surprisingly the students are extremely self-sufficient in share the notebook and returning it to me at the end of the day. We also created certificates for the top students in every class to celebrate their amazing grades.

While I wish I could differentiate more for all of my students and work one-on-one with students who are behind, sadly this isn’t a reality in the Rwandan school system. Hopefully, this will improve over time, but you have to start with where we are at. I’m happy to say this has been a successful first step to support different learners in our large classrooms and excited to see how this new organization will help with this change. I’ll keep you updated!