The intersection of gender and language in girls' educational experiences and outcomes in Rwandan basic education

Rwanda is often described as a ‘success story’ in girls’ education, with significant gains in some areas of gender parity. It is also one of the few countries in the world where all children learn from the first day of primary school in a dominant language, in this case, English. Munyaneza and Mugiraneza discuss, in their contribution to this policy brief (page 19), the impact that this is having on learners in the early years. In our study in Rwanda, we focused on girls at the end of both primary (P6) and lower secondary education (S3) to identify the ways that learning in English impacts on girls’ experiences and transitions to latter stages of education. We focus particularly on the years of lower secondary education, when language demands of the curriculum increase, to demonstrate some of the ways that learning in English intersects with socio-economic and cultural gender-based concerns to limit girls’ learning.