Jean Marie Vianney Nsengiyumva, educational coach in Nkombo, Rwanda
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“Jean Marie works as a primary school educational coach at the Nkombo Foundation. His passion for teaching has made him a hero. After crossing Lake Kivu and a 3-hour journey, Jean Marie arrives at his school”
The Nkombo Foundation Primary School is located on Nkombo Island in the Rusizi District of Rwanda. Just getting to school on this island in the middle of Lake Kivu is a challenge for Jean Marie Vianney Nsengiyumva, ProFuturo’s educational coach.
The ProFuturo project began working with the school in late 2020 with World Vision Rwanda. Currently the school has 1031 students in primary school and 128 students in secondary school with 16 classrooms and 21 teachers.
Jean Marie is in charge of accompanying and supporting 9 schools, including the Nkombo Foundation Primary School. Undoubtedly, reaching the classrooms of this school is an example of how effort and confidence in the power of education become the drivers of change in achieving quality education.
Jean Marie’s journey
On the day Jean Marie plans to work at this school on Nkombo Island, first he leaves his office at 7 am and gets on his motorbike. This first part of the journey takes 30 minutes until Jean Mari reaches the shoreline of Lake Kivu: Busekanka.
The next step will be to take a small boat with 20 other people to reach the island of Nkombo, a 15-minute ride across the waters of Lake Kivu. Once he reaches the Nkombo shore, Jean Marie sets off on a 3-kilometre walk, a further 25 minutes.
At 8:10 am, Jean Marie reaches the Nkombo Foundation Primary School, ready to start his day. After 5 hours of work at the school, he leaves 1:00 p.m. and returns to his office at 2:10 p.m. making the same return trip.
ProFuturo in Rwandan Classrooms
ProFuturo came to Rwanda in 2019. Since then, our digital education programme has been expanding rapidly throughout the country as it is closely aligned with the Rwandan government’s education policy, which is strongly committed to the use of technology in primary and secondary education. In this way, ProFuturo has now been implemented in 180 schools in 17 of Rwanda’s 30 districts.
Through our programme, teachers have been able to receive training on teaching methodology, innovation or the use of the Profuturo platform in the classroom. According to Ntirugirisoni Innocent, a teacher at the Nkombo Foundation Primary School, the new methodology used in the classroom has significantly increased students’ understanding and motivation. “The educational content is a lot of fun to motivate pupils. Most of them are using tablets for the first time,” he explains.
For their part, students at the school confirm that using the ProFuturo platform allows them to learn in a new and stimulating way. “Before the project, I didn’t use a tablet because no one in our family had one. I like using the tablet in class because this way of learning allows me and my classmates to learn many things in a short time compared to the ordinary teaching method,” says Gato Elie, a 6th grade student at the school.
Gato’s favourite lessons are those related to plants and flowers. He also loves to draw: “This picture shows a ProFuturo class, students with tablets and 3 teachers helping them to study using tablets”.
