The PANAFRICAN Review
eration attempts to reflect over the coming 15-20 years and agree on the set of values that should be reproduced systematically rather than emerging on their own and prevents the creation of a society that is at conflict with itself , overtly or subtly anarchic . It is also how to cultivate generations that are not in conflict with each other , that understand the story of their society and are self-aware of their place within that story . It is how social change is institutionalized .
Under normal circumstances , which we are far from , this is the function of society ’ s intellectuals , who anticipate how society will change or how it needs to change . Today ’ s education will be different from that of the pre-genocide period and that ought to have been different from the colonial and missionary education . However , change must be kept within some firm parameters to ensure continuity and sustainability .
Urugwiro deliberations
An education system that is designed this way has to be a mirror to image of society ; it has to be history-specific and culture-specific . Post-colonial education in Rwanda was essential to the collapse of society in 1994 . This is the failure of a conscientious intellectual and political class to emerge in ways that repurpose education to counter the colonial intent noted in this essay ’ s opening paragraph . The colonial-missionary education took the Hutu to have animus against the Tutsi and formulated destructive narratives . As was the case during colonial rule , a politico-intellectual class created a system that harboured negative intentions for Rwanda ’ s society and rewarded those who perpetuated those intentions in their interpretation of society . The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi was a natural outcome of that entire process . Much as the post-genocide order created a system that punished those with negative intentions for society , it didn ’ t go as far as repurposing the intent of education .
It held national deliberations that set to build an organic political system and from that consensus birthed an organic model to respond to Rwanda ’ s history-specific and culture-specific challenges . The 1998 / 99 Urugwiro deliberations grasped Rwanda ’ s ( present ) challenges as they were then and anticipated ( future ) others which it articulated in the constitutional , legal , and policy framework . A national vision for socioeconomic transformation was similarly conceived and executed . I am of the view that the enormity of the challenge required a separate national deliberation for pursuing an organic education system .
This article aimed to elaborate a tweet where I wrote , “ The education sector needs its own Urug-
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