Efforts in early childhood education begin to pay off for people with disabilities – MINEDUC

People with disabilities receive individual assistance during state examinations.

This was one of the things that the Minister of Education, Gaspard Twagirayezu, recalled when MINEDUC closed the results of the national examinations for primary and general high schools on Tuesday, August 27, 2024.

When the results of the General Senior Secondary Class were announced, the student who ranked fifth in the country was Jean Dieu Niyonzima, who is already visually impaired and studies at the School for the Visually Impaired in Kibeho, Nyaruguru District (Educational Institute for Blind Children).

The Ministry of Education said that in order to continue to help students with disabilities, efforts are being made in special education because they have ways to help them, whether it is taking tests where they can read, or extending the test time to a normal time and anything else that can help them.

Minister of Education Twajilayezu Gaspard said they remain committed to quality education and will continue to help people with disabilities learn.

Minister Twajilayezu said it was a good thing that students with disabilities were beginning to demonstrate their abilities.

“Their disabilities do not stop them from learning, but we must continue to work hard to help them study and take exams,” he said.

Speaking to Kigali Today after being praised and rewarded for being the best student in the general high school final examination, Nyongzima said he has a 60% visual impairment which has caused him to face various obstacles in his studies. There is a lack of resources to find answers to his problems and insufficient literature.

Jean de Dieu Niyonzima said he was 60% blind.

“The only thing that helped me was that I made him understand that even though I was facing these obstacles, as long as you do something and put in the effort, you will not fail. I also studied hard and tried my best, and what the teachers taught us in school, I was able to learn and repeat, which helped me succeed in various exams until I passed those subjects at a satisfactory level in the national exams,” he said.

According to MINEDUC, in general, at the general secondary school level, students perform well in subjects except for physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology.

However, this was not the case for Nyongzima, who said it was a course he was able to pass with high marks, thanks to special extended exam times for people with disabilities, such as the blind.

Jean de Dieu Niyonzima (left) is one of the first five general secondary school graduates to achieve excellent results in the national examination

He said: “The reason why disabled people get an extra hour is because they face obstacles that make them write slowly, like me, and this helps me a lot because I usually finish the test they give us in the last hour.”

For the 2022/2023 academic year, MINEDUC announced that students with disabilities will be taken into intensive consideration during the current year, they will receive special attention in the national examinations, the time (hours) will be extended, those who cannot write will be assigned to those who do, among others.

National Examinations and Schools Inspectorate NESA director general Dr Bernard Bahati said at the time that disabled students would be helped in different ways due to their different disabilities.

NESA Director General Dr Bernard Bahati (left) and Education Minister Gaspard Twagirayezu

He said, “For some children we give them specially printed test papers, some write by hand, and some are disabled and can only read in large characters, we also help them, we print the test papers in large characters, and some are different. “Some people can’t write well, we ask them to write, they need a lot of help, because some say they can’t use a pen, but they can use a computer, we help them.”

“We are doing our best and we know this because it is now stated in the regulations for the national exam that any child with a disability will have at least one hour to take the exam. We have stipulated one hour because they work slowly and because if we go beyond that it may interfere with the exam schedule,” Yunzemo said.

Overall, 96.8% of students who passed the national examination at the end of primary school passed in the 2023/2024 academic year, while 93.8% of students who passed at the secondary ordinary level passed.

The results of pupils who sat national exams for primary and general secondary schools were published on Tuesday.