Building bridges with education:
Digital teacher exchange between Germany and Rwanda
Education connects people—across continents, national borders, and cultures.
This idea is at the heart of a new project by Ikiraro e.V. and the Arne Friedrich Foundation, which are jointly organizing a digital teacher exchange between English teachers from Germany and the Ruli Primary School in Rwanda.
Intercultural exchange at eye level
The project is based on a simple concept: once a week, a Rwandan and a German teacher meet via video call to talk in English about their everyday life, their educational work, and other topics agreed upon individually. Five “tandems” have committed to their participation for six months.
Project goals – sharing knowledge and experiences through intercultural learning
The Rwandan teachers are given the opportunity to improve their English skills through direct exchange with advanced speakers and to gain new ideas for creating their work with students. The aim is to improve the quality of teaching at Ruli Primary School and perhaps also to counteract the imbalance in the Rwandan education system. This is because private schools usually have more resources and better training opportunities than state schools.
In Rwanda, which was French-speaking during the colonial era (apart from the national language Kinyarwanda), English only became the official language and medium of teaching after political changes in the “new” Rwanda several years after the 1994 genocide. This means that English is still a foreign language for most people, including teachers, and often just their second language. Many teachers are thus faced with the challenge of not only having to teach the language and teach in the language, but also of being able to speak it confidently and fluently themselves.
Through regular, closely scheduled conversations with their German colleagues, they now receive practical support in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, as well as didactics and methodology. Tools for self-study are also shared.
The German teachers shall also benefit. The exchange with their Rwandan colleagues gives them insights into the local school system with completely different teaching situations, the creative use of limited resources, and the special importance of education for children and young people in Rwanda. In addition, they learn a lot about life and the cultural background of Rwanda from their conversation partners.
A future-oriented project
From the participants’ perspective, the first few months of the project have already shown positive effects. Teachers in Rwanda reached greater confidence when speaking, while their German colleagues emphasize the inspiring motivation and commitment of their African colleagues.
Kim Renftel from IGS Winsen/Luhe has assumed the voluntary coordination of the project:
“We are all very happy about this great exchange. The conversations were very friendly right from the beginning, and we are connected as a whole group via What’s App. This makes it easy to solve occasional difficulties in digital communication and reach agreements quickly. We will now continue the project after the initially agreed six months.”
The digital teacher exchange is to be expanded further – there are many ideas for this…
“At the moment, we are trying to connect our school classes with each other through email contacts and suitable learning software – English as a close language of communication,” says Kim Renftel.
The Rwandan colleagues have already asked whether the German partners would like to come to Rwanda to see the country and, above all, meet their new friends in Ruli in person.
Claude
Education as a bridge
The digital teacher exchange between Germany and Rwanda has already impressively demonstrated that education can be more than just the transfer of knowledge—it can be a bridge between cultures, people, and perspectives.
With this project, Ikiraro e.V. and the Arne Friedrich Foundation are sending a strong signal for intercultural understanding and sustainable educational support.