The Nationalisation of the education system from 1962.

Following independence, the education system in Rwanda changed. A number of primary and secondary schools were nationalised. This nationalisation increased the power and the control of public school by educational Government authorities at the expense of the clergy. Nonetheless, there were no actual changes in practice. The colonisers « who left only to stay » had always maintained considerable influence and control on the Rwandan educational system as the planners and advisers in the area of education were still Belgians.

The ideological orientation of Education during the First Republic.

The Educational system during the First Republic

From 1960 and during the independence period, the Rwandan educational system embraced a regional and ethnic bearing. It is the famous « Note on the social aspect of the indigenous problem in Rwanda » of the 24th March 1957, which later became the « Bahutu Manifesto » that triggered the new educational orientation in Rwanda. Already in 1960 the MDR (the People’s Movement for the Liberation of the Bahutu) announced its educational plan inspired by the 1957 Bahutu Manifesto. According to the MDR Party, the educational policy was supposed to take into account the socio-ethnic needs and context of the country.

This meant that it was necessary to democratise the educational system and to rapidly popularise the primary education to nationalise schools and to ban boarding schools. Following the 1962 independence, the new secular Government claimed total control of the school administration and educational system by institutionalising subsidies of religious schools. With the new administration dominated by the Hutus from the south and the centre of the country, the southerners monopolised the secondary educational system at the detriment of the population from other regions. Ministers, who mostly came from the south, offered most of places to the students who came from their region.

For example, between 1967 and 1970 Gikongoro Prefecture dominated the school intake and population, thanks to Minister Anastase MAKUZA, then Minister of Education. Between 1969 and 1973, it was the turn of Gitarama Prefecture since Jean Népomuscène MUNYANDEKWE and Gaspard HARERIMANA consecutively occupied the post of the Minister of Education and both came from that Prefecture of Gitarama.

The Ethnic and Regional Quota System during the 2nd Republic.

Faced with that situation, the northerners felt cheated and left out and organised the 1973 coup d’Etat that brought Major General Juvénal HABYARIMANA on power. Following that coup d’Etat, HABYARIMANA announced, in 1976, the new political orientation in the field of secondary education « the admission to different secondary schools would take into account social ethnic and regional dimensions of the Rwandan society ». President HABYARIMANA advocated for regional and ethnic quotas, in contrary to education principles.

In reality, it was however a means of monopolising the entire educational system. Indeed, the Northerners snatched all the places in secondary schools and in the university. High-standard and modern as well as the well equipped secondary schools were built in the North- West of the country, particularly in Gisenyi and Ruhengeri, the birth place of the President. Military academies and staff colleges (EGENA) and institutions of higher learning (ISAE Agricultural Institute) as well the Ruhengeri University Campus were established in the North.

Between 1976 and 1990, the number of students from the North increased considerably in all secondary schools throughout the country. All these changes were initiated and led by HABYARIMANA and his brothers and brothers-in-law, who had monopolised all the power. For instance, a close relative of HABYARIMANA, his blood brother, Aloys NSEKALIJE commonly known as MACINYA, then Minister of Primary and Secondary education for a decade, considerably reduced the secondary school intake of students from the south under the pretext of the so-called ethnic and regional quota system. However it is astonishing to note that almost 60% of the students admitted in secondary schools came from only two communes (districts), namely Karago and Giciye, respective the birth places of the president and his brother Minister of Education.

Faced with this alarming situation, parents from the south and the TUTSI in general, frustrated by these sectarian regimes, had no another alternative but to create private schools in order to admit primary school leavers who could not be admitted in public schools.