Jean Marie Vianney
Educational coach at Nkombo Foundation Primary School, Rwanda
Educational coach at Nkombo Foundation Primary School, Rwanda
Jean Marie works as an educational coach at Nkombo Foundation Primary School. His passion for teaching has made him a hero. After crossing Lake Kivu and a 3-hour journey, Jean Marie arrives at his school.
Nkombo Foundation Primary School is located on Nkombo Island, in the Rusizi district of Rwanda. Reaching the school, on this island in the middle of Lake Kivu, is a challenge for Jean Marie Vianney Nsengiyumva, ProFuturo educational coach.
The ProFuturo project began working with the school at the end of 2020, together with World Vision Rwanda. The school currently has 1,031 students in primary school and 128 students in secondary school, with 16 classrooms and 21 teachers.
Jean Marie is responsible for accompanying and supporting 9 schools, including Nkombo Foundation Primary School. Reaching the classrooms of this school is undoubtedly an example of how effort and faith in the power of education become the driving forces for change in achieving quality teaching.
On the day Jean Marie plans to work at this school on Nkombo Island, he leaves his office at 7 am to first get on his motorcycle. This first leg of the journey takes 30 minutes, until Jean Marie reaches the Kivu coast: Busekanka.
The next step is to take a small boat along with 20 other people to reach Nkombo Island, after 15 minutes crossing the waters of Lake Kivu. Once he reaches the shore of Nkombo, Jean Marie sets off on a 3-kilometer walk, about another 25 minutes.
At 8:10 am, Jean Marie arrives at Nkombo Foundation Primary School, ready to start his day. After 5 hours of work at the school, he leaves at 1:00 pm and returns to his office at 2:10 pm, making the same journey back.
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”.
