Teacher Capacity Building in Rwanda for Nursery teachers, primary teachers and school leaders

TEACH Rwanda partners with pre-primary and primary schools across Rwanda to strengthen teaching quality and improve children's learning experiences and outcomes through sustained professional development, instructional leadership, and school-based mentoring. Working with both non-public schools implementing the Rwandan Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) in Kigali and beyond, TEACH Rwanda enters into two-year partnership agreements (Memoranda of Understanding) with schools to embed high-quality, inclusive, trauma-aware, child-centred teaching and learning that aligns with Rwanda's CBC.

The initiative is centred on TEACH for Transformation (T4T), an evidence-informed teacher professional development programme that combines experiential learning with a structured three-tier mentoring model. Teachers observe exemplary practice, participate in professional learning, and receive ongoing classroom-based coaching to strengthen their teaching. School leaders are supported to develop their instructional leadership, while partner schools work towards the TEACH Rwanda Standards - a framework for continuous improvement that enables schools to become exemplary models of effective teaching and learning.

The initiative's primary beneficiaries are teachers and school leaders, whose knowledge, skills, and confidence are strengthened through sustained mentoring and coaching. The ultimate beneficiaries are children aged 3–12, who experience more engaging, inclusive, and competency-based learning environments. Across implementing schools, teachers consistently report and demonstrate improvements in classroom practice, while children show greater confidence, stronger language and communication skills, curiosity, collaboration, leadership, public speaking, and analytical thinking. In a typical year, TEACH Rwanda partners with approximately five schools, supporting around 59 in-service teachers through mentoring and professional development, developing the instructional leadership of four school leaders, and positively impacting the learning experiences of more than 1,100 children. By building capacity within schools rather than delivering one-off training, the initiative establishes sustainable systems for continuous professional learning and contributes to stronger foundational learning outcomes across Rwanda.

The partnership-based model is designed to be scalable through local mentor development and strengthened instructional leadership, enabling improvements in teaching quality to be sustained and replicated across schools.