The road is red earth, dry and wide. Three learners walk down the middle of it, school bags on their backs and sandals on their feet: a boy in a pale blue shirt and tie, two girls in navy jumpers and skirts. Two of them are smiling straight at the camera. Behind them are tall trees and a brick wall.
It is an ordinary walk to school. This story is about what waits at the other end of it.
We spent time in schools across several districts, including Rulindo and Musanze in the Northern Province and Kayonza in the Eastern Province. We photographed classrooms, yards and kitchens, and interviewed learners, head teachers, school staff and school leaders in Kinyarwanda for a feature with UNICEF Rwanda.
What follows is one school day, pieced together from those visits: the walk in, a classroom when the rain comes, a kitchen, lunch, and the lesson that follows it.
01The question behind the walk
Getting children through the school gate is something Rwanda has largely achieved. Net primary enrolment is close to 99% (GPE Rwanda country page, 2026). In the 2022/23 school year, Rwanda’s primary schools counted 2,838,343 pupils (NISR, from Ministry of Education administrative data).
Being enrolled is not the same as learning, though. The GPE country page notes that many children still lack foundational skills when they finish primary school, and that repetition, dropout and over-age rates are high (GPE Rwanda country page, 2026). The feature we reported for put the problem in one line:
“As enrolment expanded, a deeper question emerged: were all children learning, progressing and completing their education?”
The Government of Rwanda, through the Ministry of Education and the Rwanda Basic Education Board, is implementing the Global Partnership for Education (GPE)-financed System Transformation Grant, with technical support from UNICEF. The grant runs from 2024 to 2028. Its focus areas are foundational literacy and numeracy, timely enrolment and progression, and stronger capacity, coordination, leadership and financing across the sector (GPE Rwanda country page, 2026).
In the schools, that reform does not look like a policy. It looks like a roof, a stove and an extra lesson.
02When it rains
Rwanda has two rainy seasons, one centred on March to May and the other on October to December (Rwanda Meteorology Agency).
In some of the schools we visited, those months used to mean lost lessons. In Musanze, a head teacher described lessons that once stopped every time it rained. In Rulindo, a Primary Five learner said what is different now:
“Our lessons are no longer interrupted when it rains, and we can remain in class and concentrate.”
It is a short sentence about a real change. A lesson that is not interrupted is a lesson that gets finished, and a class that can stay in its seats can keep its attention on the board.
At one school, break time spilled out between long classroom blocks with blue roofs, blue doors and blue window frames, under a heavy grey sky. The yard was full of children, most in checked shirts with navy skirts or shorts and a few in hoodies.
Inside another classroom, wooden desks on grey metal frames stood in tight rows, and every seat was taken. On the blackboard behind the learners, a chalk diagram was still visible.
Across the country, the programme has completed 313 pre-primary classrooms in 30 districts and 324 toilet facilities, and 12,000 children are expected to benefit from better learning conditions. These are programme figures as reported in the feature story, from the Ministry of Education, REB and UNICEF.
03The stove before lunch
Before lunch, the day belongs to the kitchen.
In one school kitchen we photographed, the walls were tiled white to shoulder height. Two large round stoves of polished steel stood on a raised, tiled platform, each with a broad lid and several handles. At the base of one, through a small opening where the fire is fed, the embers glowed orange. Nearby, a cook in a navy tunic stood behind an open pot set into a stove, a hand on each handle, mid-sentence.
Stoves like these are part of the reform too. The programme has provided 244 energy-saving stoves for school feeding, according to the same partners’ figures. At Groupe Scolaire Cyinzovu, in Kayonza District, the school described the difference:
“Cooking is now faster and easier, and there is much less smoke in the kitchen. We use less firewood, and the meals are ready earlier.”
Less firewood, less smoke and an earlier meal. Each of those matters to the people who cook every day, and the last one matters to every learner waiting for the afternoon.
School meals have a history in Rwanda. The programme began in secondary day schools in 2014, was introduced in pre-primary and primary schools in 2019 and was fully scaled nationwide in 2021. The Ministry of Education says it has helped reduce the school dropout rate from 9.4% in 2021 to 4.7% (Ministry of Education, 2026).
04Lunch on time
Lunch is eaten at the same desks where the morning’s lessons happened. Steel plates hold rice and beans. Some learners look down at their food; one, spoon halfway to his mouth, looks up at the camera. At the back of the room a teacher in a white shirt stands by a blackboard still covered in chalk.
In Kayonza, an energy-saving stove means meals ready on time for afternoon lessons. When the food is ready on time, the afternoon can start on time too.
05The afternoon lesson
After lunch, the exercise books come back out. One learner leans over a page, pen in hand, and grins at something just out of the frame.
For some children the afternoon lesson is where the gaps show. That is what the remedial classes are for. Learners who are falling behind get focused support during the holidays, guided by assessment results.
- 840,525learners in Primary 1 to 5 reached by remedial classes
- 3,227schools in the August to September 2025 holiday programme
- 68.3%of participating learners reached the benchmark for promotion
- 20.4%P1 to P5 repetition in 2024–2025, down from 29.7% in 2022–2023
Those are programme figures as reported in the feature story, from the Ministry of Education, REB and UNICEF. Behind them is a simpler idea: a child who is not left to repeat a year is a child who keeps moving with their classmates.
Noticing who needs help is the other half of the work. A school leader showed us how records on attendance and assessment help teachers notice a child who needs support before it is too late. A register and a test result are ordinary things. Used this way, they become a warning that arrives in time.
06Back in the yard
At break, two boys in the dusty yard put on a show for the camera. One crouches, fists pressed to his forehead, pulling a fierce face. The other is mid-step beside him, one hand raised, laughing. Behind them, other children watch and wait their turn.
None of them will have heard of a System Transformation Grant. They do not need to. What reaches them is a classroom that stays open, a meal that comes on time and a teacher who notices.
The feature ended with a line that describes the aim better than any figure:
“Every child is not only present in school, but safe, supported and able to learn, progress and fulfil their potential.”
Tomorrow morning the walk along the red road will start again. More and more, it leads to a lesson that the rain no longer stops.
Sources
Photographs and story: TrueStory Africa. The people shown were photographed with consent.