PHOTOS: Day 3 of Leadership Retreat pays attention to Education, fighting corruption

During today's discussions at the 17th National Leadership Retreat, leaders paid due attention to Rwanda's long term Economic Development, Education sector and fighting corruption.

All topics discussed on Day three of the Leadership Retreat, though diverse in nature, were seen as both necessary and complimentary if Rwanda's progress into the Vision 2050 is to remain in high gear.

Those to speak showed how the Vision 2050 must go hand in hand with investment strategies designed to address the challenges that will exist in the future, placing the country in  position to compete on a truly international level.

Two important things to attain were identified as a strong education system that produces highly skilled workers and enabling that workforce to be able to access loans easily.

The Private Sector was also urged to properly exploit the many opportunities it has and focus on most especially on IT Development.

As for Investment, high interest loans were again singled out as major culprit hindering such initiatives and the fact that Commercial Banks have continuously failed to pool resources and support major projects and the consolidation of collateral; things that participants said should be addressed quickly.

And then there is the matter of locally manufactured goods that find themselves clustered in Urban Areas, while remaining scare in Rural ones. Entrepreneurs present said that they now see the folly in allowing this to continue and that they intend to properly utilize market opportunities in the region, regardless of whether or not they are in towns.

The problem of overcrowding in the Country's Public School Classrooms was also talked on, as well as students who are allowed to continue from Class to Class, despite performing quite poorly, and the quite wasteful problem of equipment bought for schools; only to find that it does not even meet quality standards. All of those problems in the Education Sector were seen as urgent and needing resolution.

Technical Vocational Training was confirmed as a valuable job creation tool, but there is a problem of the high school fees involved in getting that sort of education, which discourages potential students, when you consider that the 9-year basic education programme is basically free.

And finally corruption was, not surprisingly, identified as a major hindrance to the realization of the Vision 2050, promoting calls for even more efforts to fight it.

Institutions with the highest levels of corruption and mismanagement of public funds were openly criticized during the discussions and urged to ensure that the problem is addressed.