Save the Children's education programming focuses on building a strong foundation of learning by ensuring all children have equitable access to quality basic education. Save the Children programmes consist in the development of children in different age groups in pre-primary and primary schools to prepare their learning capacity by ensuring all children, including out-of-school children are enrolled and retained to school.  All interventions are implemented jointly with the Ministry of Education and other local and international partners.

1.  ECD Financing

Save the Children through Kumwe Hub aims at increasing access to capital for affordable education providers in Rwanda to enhance their education offerings and improve children learning outcomes with children in the range of 0-6 years. For 0-3 years old, Kumwe Hub sets up daycares to achieve a dual focus model of using profits from some daycares to subsidize others for social impact in line with Save the Children’s mandate. In addition, Save the Children through Goshen Finance, provides affordable loans at low cost (3%) to early childhood development (ECD) businesses and gives capacity building in business management and teaching with impact.

For 3-6 years, the programme aimed at ensuring that ECD centres in both rural and urban areas of Rwanda have high quality early learning environment, improved pedagogical technical capacity for caregivers, high quality learning materials and improved infrastructure to support children’s learning and holistic development.

2.  Zero out Of School Project

The project aims at returning and retaining over 177 thousand out-of-school children (OOSC) aged 6 to 17 in primary schools by mid-2027. The program is implemented by Save the Children in partnership with Humanity & Inclusion, NUDOR with support of MINEDUC. The programme envisages a combination of both demand and supply-side interventions, alongside a strong focus on improving data and tracking systems to identify and track OOSC. The demand side refers to making education opportunities available for OOSC and addressing barriers families face (physical, social, financial, etc.). The supply side refers to improving teacher competencies through professional development (peer learning, inclusive and remedial education, etc.), empowering school and community structures to be proactive in their engagement towards OOSC, as well as ensuring that the learning environment is safe for enrolled OOSC.

3. Advocacy

SC is regarded as a leading advocate of children’s right to learn in Rwanda. Since 2021, it uses its membership of different fora and relevant high level technical working groups to engage relevant public institutions to advocate for necessary changes in policies and their implementation by the government.