Press Release: Clinton Hunter Development Initiative Partners With Governments of United Kingdom, Rwanda and Malawi to Strengthen Education in Africa

New Training Facilities Will Produce 800 Additional Teachers and Help Educate 200,000 Children Per Year.

President Clinton today joined officials from the United Kingdom, Rwanda, and Malawi to announce a new partnership on education that seeks to educate more than 200,000 children each year in Rwanda and Malawi.

Under this unique partnership, the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) will invest $10 million to manage the design and construction of four teacher training facilities in Rwanda and Malawi that each are capable of graduating 200 new primary school teachers every year.

“Putting qualified educators in places where they are needed most is an essential step in ensuring that our next generations have the opportunity to live successful lives,” President Clinton said. “I am so pleased that the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative is working with the governments of Malawi, Rwanda, and the UK, to improve the lives of children. By investing in teacher training facilities, we are investing in the futures of Malawi and Rwanda.”

This investment draws on funds from the Hunter Foundation and Band Aid. The partnership prioritizes sustainability, and the completed facilities will be turned over from CHDI to the Governments of Rwanda and Malawi, who have committed with the UK Department for International Development to fund the annual operating expenses of the facilities and the salaries of the new teachers until at least 2015.

This partnership strengthens international efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Many experts identify the recruitment, training, and retention of motivated and qualified teachers as one of the biggest challenges to sustained improvements in education. Following an accelerated training curriculum that reflects the urgency of this issue, the first class of 400 teachers in each country will graduate in less than two years, in 2010. Assuming conservative class sizes of 50 students, these new teachers will educate 40,000 children across Rwanda and Malawi. By 2015, the facilities will have graduated 4,000 new teachers, capable of educating 200,000 students each year, with the potential to impact millions of young people over time.

Besides providing education to many children who are receiving it for the first time, the new teachers will help to reduce class sizes and improve the quality of education for students. The current teacher to student ratio is 1 to 78 in Malawi and 1 to 74 in Rwanda, and school completion rates are 30 percent and 52 percent, respectively, among the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa.

The new teacher training facilities will be located in rural areas where it has been difficult to attract and retain qualified teachers. There also will be a particular emphasis on increasing the number of female teachers, in an effort to keep more girls in school.

Welcoming the partnership, the UK Minister for International Development, Douglas Alexander MP said: “Educating young people can significantly improve their chances in life and this Government has made it a priority in our effort to reduce poverty in the developing world. Providing new and highly-skilled teachers means more kids can go to school, whilst the quality of the education improves for many more. That is why this agreement is so important and I hope the partnership approach will be an example for many more projects in the future.”

Sir Tom Hunter, chairman of the Hunter Foundation and board member of CHDI added, “This looks to us to be a great way of delivering precisely what the governments' of Rwanda and Malawi see as their vision for education in their countries; alongside DfID that makes for a great partnership model that's worth trying out, and if it works taking it to scale. It's fantastic so many children can benefit from such an initiative.”

Rwandan Minister of Education Gahakwa Daphrose, said: “This is exactly the right kind of partnership and intervention we need in Rwanda's education sector right now. Our biggest challenge now is not quantity but quality. The training and deployment of additional teachers is a priority to ensure that we provide the right kind of foundation for our children to access secondary and higher education.”

The Deputy Minister of Education in Malawi, Olive Masanza, added: “This collaboration will help put well-trained, motivated teachers into the rural schools that need them most. This is Malawi's number one priority in the education sector. Having partners – both government and private sector – working effectively together to make a difference is something we hope to see more of.”

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