Rwanda’s Child-friendly schools infrastructure standards and guidelines

Recognizing that the physical environment in which learning takes place has a large impact on the outcomes of Education , the Ministry of Education in Rwanda developed practical guidance on how to achieve the standards set in the “Rwandan Education Quality Standards 2008”.

The document “Child friendly schools infrastructure standards and guidelines” seeks to harmonize the country’s understanding of what an acceptable school infrastructure is. The standards and guidelines provide a comprehensive framework that is to be referenced by all who are involved in the planning, monitoring, designing, procuring, constructing and rehabiliting school infrastructures.

 It has been developed through a comprehensive consultative process that could be summarized as follows:

1. Site visits to various types of schools in each region.

2. Use group consultation including workshops with pupils, staff and interviews with head teachers.

3. Working with Ministry of Education schools engineers who have working knowledge of each region

4. Expert working groups were set-up for each standard.

5. Interviewing key experts/specialists

6. Study of Ministry of Education’s major school construction projects.

7. Study of regional building regulations such as the South African school standards

8. Study of international building regulations and primary schools design guidelines

9. Study of UNICEF guidelines on Child Friendly schools for Africa, Thailand and Iraq.

10. Verification and feedback from regional consultation to district and school representatives.


The guidelines are elaborated along four quality standards:

Standard A:

“A school must have appropriate, sufficient and secure buildings”

Standard B:

“A school must be a healthy, clean, secure and learner protecting environment”

Standard C:

“A school must have a child-friendly, barrier free environment which promotes inclusive access and equal rights of every child”

Standard D:

“A school must have adequate and appropriate equipment that support level of education”


See: Rwanda Ministry of Education (Approved document, May 2009). “Child Friendly Schools Infrastructure Standards and Guidelines” Primary and Tronc Commun schools.


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