The Rwanda Mentorship Community of Practice (MCOP) is an initiative to scale and institutionalize a model for supporting Rwanda’s school-based mentors. Mentors will be able to support teachers with the additional education they need to improve their pedagogical and English-language skills and provide a higher quality of education to all of Rwanda’s basic education students. The project is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The rapid expansion of basic education from six to nine, and now twelve years and the switch from French to English as the medium of instruction have led to strong demand for qualified basic education teachers in Rwanda. The School- Based Mentorship (SBM) initiative is a national initiative by the Government of Rwanda to strengthen the quality of basic education instruction throughout the country. MCOP began as a pilot program funded under the U.K. Department for International Development’s Innovation in Education Fund in April 2013. The pilot targeted 500 mentors, or half of all SBMs. It reached all 500 mentors, as well as an additional 400 educators. An endline evaluation of the pilot showed that MCOP resulted in improvements in peer learning and sharing of knowledge and resources among mentors. MCOP has also become the official communication channel of the SBM initiative, connecting mentors to the Rwanda Education Board and other education interventions.