KINYINYA: Peace and Hope Academy commits to the goal of quality education even though children still pay less for school fees than in other private schools
The administration of Peace and Hope Academy, located in Kinyinya sector in Gasabo District in Kigali City, has vowed to maintain the main goal of providing quality education to children from low-income families in order to prevent children from losing hope for the future as a big number of its students are the ones whose families can’t afford expensive School fees.
Since its beginning the goal of Peace and Hope Academy was to bring the school closer to the community so that those who could not afford expensive schools can benefit from this affordable school which was constructed to enable children from the community level to have access to quality education.
Speaking to TOP AFRICA NEWS on Friday, 1st January 2021, Albert Musabyimana, the Founder and Legal Representative of Peace and Hope Academy said “We have a lot of children and we will continue to receive more in order for our country to continue to develop well-educated children because that is the contribution we owe our country.”
He explained that “Since we have a good nation, safe country, it is important that children are given a stable education so that they too can do more tomorrow”
Launched between 2013 and 2014, Peace and Hope Academy started working in the small houses where Nursery School Children had to spend all their time in an environment which was not favourable.
The administration says today there is a lot of effort put into building and expanding the school to help as many children as possible and currently they have constructed a new administration Office and Isolation room as well as other sanitary infrastructures as part of the COVID 19 precaution measures.
Normally when someone puts an investment in infrastructures like building schools, most of them set the expansive amount of school fees mainly for the purpose of recovering their investments as soon as possible.
According to the Peace and Hope Academy, the school was built with a purpose and that purpose will remain the same.
Musabyimana said “Even though we have good infrastructure, we did not immediately think of the immediate financial benefits but first of all, we contributed our role to serve the country to recognise those who liberate it.”
He added that “For some people, when they get money like we invested here, they would use it to build a beautiful personal house or go abroad to enjoy it, but at least for the students here, there will be some who will benefit the country, even if they are paying small amount of school fees.”
The administration of the school says that the fact that children are not paying a lot of money does not mean that the school does not provide quality education.
The school focuses on the use of skilled and qualified teachers for the sake of the children’s education.
However, the main challenge is that some teachers sometimes go elsewhere when they feel that the salary is low since the school also relies on the little amount of schools paid by parents, whom the school Founder and Legal representative says are the ones who have the right to decide on the rise of the School fees so teachers can remain.
“We continue to advocate for the teachers to maintain them, because you will find that our teachers are hired by another school because they have a higher salary as parents at those schools pay more school fees than here.” He explains.
“But I am sure that the teachers we have now are also qualified and I hope their results will be visible to parents. Parents should not be worried because what we are always striving for is the result of their children. ” He assured.
On top of this is, there are also impacts of COVID 19 on the daily life of the School, on parents and children in general and probably there are risks that once schools are fully reopened the same are likely to affect the school funding.
Musabyimana said “It is clear that the impact of COVID 19 on teachers will also reach parents and you will find that school fees are missing.
“But with the power of God, life will come to normal, even the vaccine is about to come and I hope that our country will get it too.”
He explained that for instance a motorcyclist tells you that “now we don’t make money because of curfew hours. So those consequences are there but not just on me only but also the country as a whole. So we all have to fight this epidemic to overcome it so that the year 2021 we will be back in our jobs as usual. ”
Despite these challenges, the school administration is confident that it will not compromise on its goal of continuing to strive for universal and quality education to the children.
Peace and Hope Academy currently has more than 180 students from Nursery School to P4. There are currently places for new students who want to study in Nursery and Primary School.
