These courses included the military and war skills, iron smith and foundry, poetry, basket making.

The majority of schools were run by religious organisations and received government support if they followed the Belgian curriculum and other rules.

Tutsis were given access to the best education at the prestigious Astrida Secondary School and groomed for colonial administrative jobs, ethnic tensions grew as a result.

After Rwanda's independence, the focus was on restructuring of the education system and the development of a national curriculum.

The main goal was to reach more Rwandan children and in particular to improve access to schooling in rural areas.

[12] In 2008, in an effort to stimulate Rwanda's integration with the East African Community (EAC), English was adopted as the national teaching language, and only the first three years of primary are still taught in Kinyarwanda.

The Ministry's website details it responsibilities, functions and key personnel; it provides a mission statement saying:[15] [16] The general mission of the Ministry of Education shall be to transform the Rwandan citizen into skilled human capital for socio-economic development of the country by ensuring equitable access to quality education focusing on combating illiteracy, promotion of science and technology, critical thinking and positive values.Education accounts for fifteen percent of the national budget, of which 9.5 percent is allotted to Higher education.

The Rwandan government has formed a national strategy for information and communications technology (ICT).

[17] The Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) is active in promoting the use of ICT in schools and is co-ordinating the One Laptop Per Child project in the country.

This training is already paying dividends, with many students now being offered well paid (by local standards) part-time work.

In October 2006, the NEPAD e-Africa Commission launched a project to further develop ICT in Rwandan schools.

Another small-scale EdQual project study has compared NEPAD e-Schools in Rwanda and Kenya.

designed to increase the use of technology in education as a means to improve teaching and learning within the classroom.

[citation needed] The level of education one has is often seen as a form of capital accumulation which helps in countries' development.

In Rwanda, the government implemented policies over the years to ensure there is a high literacy rate among the population.

Enrollment in primary school almost doubled over the decade, with an average annual growth rate of 5.4 percent between 1998 and 2009, to reach almost 2.2 million students in 2008.

[22] The constraints are aggravated by the fact that supplementary reading materials were inadequate, particularly for the lower primary school grades.

This goes to show that there is still a challenge in terms of access and high-quality textbooks in Rwanda which are expected to be addressed in upcoming plans.

[22] This means that Rwanda is not able to produce a highly skilled workforce, especially when considering the large proportion of teachers who are not qualified to teach the secondary school pupils.

This shows that the incentive for further education is low and there are other jobs that have a higher benefit as compared to teaching in Rwanda.

French, the language of instruction before Paul Kagame's accession to power, was officially replaced in schools by English.[when?]

At the end of these three years, students take O-Level national examinations which allows them to progress Upper Secondary public schools.