For the second edition, the Centre for Instructional Technology at the National University of Rwanda has organized the ICT4Kids Programme for NUR staff children.

According to Dr. Evode Mukama, the Director of CIT, this programme aims at familiarizing children studying in primary school with new technologies of information and communication.

“As Rwanda wants to become a knowledge-based society, ICTs are a major tool to achieve this. This is what we are exactly doing, we are investing in future generations,” said Dr. Mukama.

More than 70 children are participating in this two week long program organized with the financial support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), in its cooperation project with NUR.

Dr. Mukama said that this program will serve to bridge the gap between the traditional way of teaching and the modern one through the project-base education on which this programme is build on.

“Children will choose topics on which they will work on during these two weeks. They will use different programs that will help them visualize their projects. These include Paint, Word, Excel and PowerPoint and some elementary notions on Multimedia,” he added.

Children, working in pairs, are working under the supervision of 10 trainers, mostly Computer Science students at NUR. These trainers are helping children to develop their projects.

This training started on this Monday 15th November 2010 will end on Friday 26th November 2010. A closing ceremony is planned, where students will showcase to their parents the final projects they worked on during the training period.

By MUCYO Gilbert