The nature of schools and academic performance of pupils in primary schools in Gasabo district Kigali City

Table 4.6 Resource Demand and Supply in 5 Selected Private Primary Schools of Gasabo District

Resource	School name	AA		BB		CC		DD		EE
	Items	Dds*	Spls*	Dds	Spls	Dds	Spls	Dds	Spls	Dds	Spls
Physical	Offices	3	3	3	3	4	4	2	2	3	2
	Classrooms	22	22	42	42	38	38	52	40	20	20
	Toilets	30	20	42	42	32	32	24	24	30	25
	Classrooms with electricity	20	20	42	42	42	42	40	40	20	20
	Playgrounds	3	2	4	3	4	3	4	2	3	1
	Laboratory	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	0
	Clinical room	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0
	Craft room	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0
	Staff room	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	Library	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0
	Computer room	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0
Material	Chairs	30	25	72	72	75	65	70	56	28	24
	Tables	24	18	56	56	68	68	60	50	24	19
	Suitable desks	330	330	678	678	556	556	800	750	363	365
	Projectors	1	0	2	2	2	2	1	0	1	0
	Text Books &other reading materials	700	500	5000	3875	5000	4510	1500	1400	1235	849
	Computers	10	3	80	63	70	52	50	40	25	2
	Computers with internet connection	3	1	45	45	25	20	40	5	3	1
	Printer	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	Maps	10	8	25	25	20	20	6	6	14	7
	Charts	52	52	48	48	43	43	30	18	40	21
	TVs	2	1	2	2	2	2	1	0	1	0
	Radios	2	1	3	3	4	4	2	1	2	1
	School buses	5	0	2	2	3	2	3	0	2	1
	Photocopier	1	1	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1
Human	Enrolment	550	550	1468	1468	1111	1111	1200	1039	760	726
	Class size	25	25	35	35	29	29	30	28	38	36
	Qualified Teachers	24	24	46	46	50	50	42	42	20	20
	Counseling officers	1	0	1	1	2	1	1	0	1	0
	School nurses	2	0	2	2	2	1	2	1	2	0
	Administrators	7	7	6	6	4	4	7	7	4	2
	Supporting Staff	4	3	14	14	7	7	16	16	3	2
Financial	Budget	Not revealed	Not revealed	Not revealed	Not revealed	Not revealed	Not revealed	300,000,000frw	187,000,000frw	Not revealed	Not revealed

*Dds: Demands; *Spls: Supplies

NB: The inventory in table 4.6 is of academic year 2009.

The tables 4.4 and 4.7 show that the inventory of educational resources in selected schools comparing the figures in the demand and supply columns. In general, private primary schools have reached or were about to reach in supply column what was stated in demand column. However, for some few items, even private primary schools did not attain a satisfactory degree of supplying themselves what they had stated in demand column. This is the case of items like: staff room, craft room, clinical room, projectors, counseling officer, school bus and school nurse where two out of the 5 selected private schools did not get any of those resources while they consider them necessary for the education of their pupils. For laboratory, only two out of 5 private primary schools have managed to have one each. For the rest of items, private primary schools of Gasabo have relatively acquired a satisfactory level of availability and adequacy of educational resources.

In contrast, the public primary schools selected did not reach required educational resources they aspired as there is a very significant gap between their demands and their supplies. Even for the basic educational resources like books, classrooms, maps, charts public primary school selected showed a big gap between the demands and the supplies. As other items are concerned, for example, enrolment, classrooms and teachers, the situation is worse. In fact, willing to implement the UPE and EFA principles, public primary schools of Rwanda in general ( and those of Gasabo are included) enroll very many pupils while educational resources remain very few. The number of teachers doesn't increase as the enrolment increases too. This causes a high pupils-teacher ratio and a big class size.

In all 5 private primary schools selected, pupils follow the system called `going unique' commonly known as `gonginike' in Kinyarwanda whereby they study from 7h30 am to 1h30 pm and go home for coming back to school the following day. In this system, the classroom is used by only one class and teacher is supposed to spend the same number of hours at school as his/her class. But in all 5 public primary schools selected as in all public primary schools of Rwanda the system practiced is called `double shift' whereby one classroom is used by two classes on the same day. The first group uses the morning and goes home to come back to school the following day in afternoon while the group that comes in afternoon today will come back to school tomorrow in the morning. However, teachers remain the same. This means that a public primary teacher teaches two classes on the same day and so he doubles the number of hours spent by each of his/her classes.

As computers and internet connection are concerned, even though the availability and adequacy of these resources are not well distributed among private primary schools, the number of computers per school varies between 3 to 80 computers and there is at least one computer connected to internet. In 5 public primary schools selected, the number of computers per school varies between 2 and 18 computers and only one public school has access to internet with 18 computers all connected. All the other 4 do not have internet connection. This means that they cannot access online educational resources while in all private primary schools; the online resources are commonly utilized for the best quality of education they deliver. However, in the inventory, children's personal computers were not counted as they are not part of the schools' property (through the project named `one laptop per child' a good number of children especially in Kigali City have their own laptops which they acquire at a very low price with a certain sponsorship of the government and these are adapted to primary school children with special software designed to teach Sciences and Geography).

As the financial resources are concerned, only one of the 5 private schools selected accepted to reveal to the researcher the budget they expected to use in 2009 and what they actually used. Other private primary schools refused to reveal their budgets and there could not be any other mechanism to be used by the researcher to be aware of those budgets. However, the equilibrium which tends to be between demands and supplies in other educational resources in those private primary schools can allow the researcher to believe that there tends to be equilibrium between the demand and the supply in financial resources in these schools. It is important to note that the salaries of teachers and other staff members are deducted from the same budgets too in private schools.

In public primary schools, the budgets mentioned in the inventory are used to purchase some basic educational resources and to pay teachers' bonuses as their salaries are paid by the central Government. However, those budgets are still insignificant as the gap between their demands and their supplies is still great.

The figures in the inventory of educational resources allowed the rejection of the second hypothesis which said: `There is no significant difference in availability and adequacy of school resources between private and public primary schools of Gasabo district' and hence, there is a significant difference in availability and adequacy between private and public primary schools of Gasabo. Educational resources are more available and adequate in private than in public primary schools of Gasabo District.