Chapter 20: Distance Teacher Training in Rwanda: Comparing the Costs¹

The simple question, “Is distance teacher training cheaper than conventional teacher education?” has only a complicated answer (Perraton & Potashnik, 1997).

Like many governments in sub-Saharan Africa, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) set itself a goal of Universal Primary Education (UPE) by 2015. One legacy of Rwanda’s unique recent history is that the country has a high proportion of unqualified teachers. A research study carried out by UNESCO in 2000 showed that more than 65% of secondary teachers in government and government-aided schools in Rwanda were unqualified (Drique & Wassenove, 2000). The GoR has made many advances in the education sector postgenocide, and enrollment in secondary education trebled from 50,000 in 1995 to 150,000 in 2003.