From 13^th July to 19^th August 2020, Rwanda Polytechnic through its Colleges is having a workshop to develop a competence-based curricula and update its existing knowledge-based curricula to competence-based at IPRCs level.

The government of Rwanda has made Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) a priority. The mandate of Rwanda Polytechnic (RP) includes providing a strategic response to the skills development challenges facing the country across all sectors of the economy.

In this regard, MINEDUC put in place Rwanda Education Qualifications Framework (REQF) as a guiding tool that curriculum developers base on to develop the related training materials as to bridge the skills gap.  The core principle is to promote the improvement of quality in training and subsequent production and widening access to TVET which respond to the labor market needs.

The main objective of this workshop is to develop the competence-based curricula at polytechnic level following DACUM methodology and the expected result from this activity is to have Polytechnics’ curricula (Advanced diploma curricula) developed in Competence-based Approach.

The following are the main activities to be conducted during this workshop: Design occupational standards, design competence standards, development of course content and develop assessment package.

IPRC KITABI is grabbing this opportunity to shift from diploma to Advanced Diploma.

Competence-based Curricula have been developed in the same concept of skills gap bridging and have been implemented from January, 2017 national wide from Level 3, 4 and 5 respectively.  Level 5 leavers (equivalent to senior six), sat for national examinations last year (2019) and those students should follow the same approach at Polytechnic level (competence-based approach). The current programs (curricula used by IPRCs/Polytechnics are knowledge-based, and the smooth progression root is required from Level 5 to level 6&7 as per Rwanda Education Qualifications Framework (REQF). Therefore, level 6 and 7 Curricula are supposed to be competence-based curricula to for catering students from level 5 in the same approach.

                                                                            Workshop participants/Photo by Jimmy