Rwanda has made commendable efforts to improve basic education, including literacy in the early grades. Students are learning to read and write in Kinyarwanda, and they are acquiring the language skills to read and write in English. The Ministry of Education’s Rwanda Education Board and its development partners have laid a firm strategic and policy foundation for continuing to raise literacy rates.
The results of three literacy skills assessments of P1–P4 students, which were administered in samples of schools nationwide between 2011 and 2014, show that many students are acquiring literacy skills. Two additional tests, administered between 2013 and 2015, found that improvements in literacy performance are, at least in part, the result of new methods and materials for teaching literacy. These new approaches are now being implemented across Rwanda in the early grades.