Improving the Recruitment and Retention of Teachers in Rural Rwanda

The objective of this paper is to improve the quality of rural education in Rwanda. It examines a single issue in this sector, that of problems with recruiting and retaining skilled teachers. Rural life is hard in a variety of ways, ranging from poor pay to sociocultural isolation, and for this reason highly qualified teachers are unlikely to want to work in rural regions. As a result, rural regions, which are generally the worst-performing regions scholastically, have the lowest quality teachers. Of course, this problem is not unique to Rwanda. Consequently there is a wealth of literature on this topic from around the world; there are a large variety of policy models that have attempted to address this issue. This paper examines a handful of the most promising models, specifically the hardship model, mandate model, recruitment model, distance model, and teacher resiliency model, and weighs their relative strengths and weaknesses. It then looks at how they would function within the Rwandan educational system – the success or failure of a particular model is inextricably linked to its “fit” within a particular context. After comparing the strengths and weaknesses of each model along with their relevance to the Rwandan context, this paper makes a recommendation on the models that are most likely to be both feasible and successful within Rwanda. In this case, a combination of the recruitment and teacher resiliency model is likely to be the best option.