Rwanda needs an additional 40,000 classrooms to reduce overcrowding in schools and enable students to attend full-day classes, the Ministry of Education has said, acknowledging that meeting the target will require time and adequate funding.
Education Minister Joseph Nsengimana made the remarks on October 20, 2026, while appearing before a parliamentary committee responsible for education, technology, culture, sports and youth to discuss issues raised by the Auditor General.
He said a ministry assessment had established that 40,000 additional classrooms were needed to ease overcrowding, allow students to attend school for the full scheduled day and achieve the target of 46 students per classroom.
“We conducted an assessment to determine how many classrooms are needed to address overcrowding and the practice of students attending school for only part of the day. We found that we need about 40,000,” he said.
The minister acknowledged that closing the gap would be challenging, noting that the government had built 27,500 classrooms between 2017 and 2024, yet the country still needed another 40,000 to resolve the problem.
Nsengimana also identified the mismatch between planning and available funding as one of the challenges facing the education sector, saying it had prevented some targets from being achieved as expected.
He cited the programme to provide teachers with computers, explaining that under the first National Strategy for Transformation (NST1), implementation rates for some targets stood at 21% and 18%, respectively.
He called for long-term planning spanning at least 10 years, with reviews every five years, to ensure that planned activities are aligned with the resources available.
The minister stressed that despite continuing shortages of classrooms and teaching and learning materials, the government must improve the use of existing resources and pursue sustainable solutions to support further progress in education.
