The explorative research is set out to evaluate if FAWE Rwanda Chapter has, in the eyes of informants, implemented the objectives set for their school program; ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’. By a target achievement evaluation model aims this research to explore if the organizational structure design of ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’ has had any impact on FAWE Rwanda Chapter’s possibilities to successfully implement their objectives. This research includes six depth-interviews with informants from ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’ and one depth-interview with an informant from FAWE Rwanda Chapter. Questionnaire forms where handed out to two of the participating informant groups; the teachers and the students at ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’. Forty questionnaire forms were handed out to the students and ten questionnaire forms to the teachers, with the purpose to support or weaken the data given from the depth-interviews. The result shows that FAWE Rwanda Chapter has not completely succeeded to implement their set objectives. Some of the objectives are implemented, while some are not! The result shows that the decentralized organizational structure of ‘The Centre of Excellence’ is rather complicated. This has lead up to lacks in the information flow and miscommunication in between the organizational levels, and lacks in understanding the purpose of the objectives.

The background of our field of interest grew out of getting knowledge of an organisation called Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). We learnt that FAWE had created schools in different African countries and that they had formulated gender responsive pedagogy. Through the methodologies of semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews with teachers, students and FAWE representatives, in addition, studies of documents, we wanted to examine what the FAWE educational strategies were and how FAWE was perceived amongst teachers and students at FAWE girls‘ school. Finally, we wanted to understand how and if gender pedagogy can help strivings towards gender equality and development. The study has a qualitative and inductive approach which implies that no theoretical framework was formulated prior to the field study. However, we have formulated a theoretical framework which has served as a tool for analyzing our findings. We have turned to postcolonial feminist theory and development theory on education and gender.Our findings imply importance of understanding the uniqueness in the Rwandan society due to colonialism and genocide, especially when it comes to formulating definitions of gender. Further the Rwandan context is important to keep in mind for donor societies, when formulating demands on Rwanda. For example we will note that international influences on the Rwandan educational system are immense, but what happens if the influences are not coherent with the Rwandan context? Since girls‘ access to education has increased in Rwanda due to among others FAWE Girls‘ School, we also underline the importance for government to meet the girls‘ needs once they have graduated in order to minimise risks of brain drain. In addition we have detected a pattern of understandings amongst the students that financial support to girls is crucial to meet their definitions of gender and gender equality; the girls view financial support as a foundation in order to reach gender equality, or for girls to be able to access arenas that previously belonged to the boys.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of K-12 Educational Administration, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Mar. 30, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-182). Also issued in print.