(Ecofin Agency) - On January 2, 2019, Isaac Munyakazi, Rwanda’s state minister of primary and secondary education announced the opening of the first programming school in the country. During an interview with the local media The New Times, the minister indicated that the first group of sixty young tech passionates selected in the whole country would attend classes this year.

These future students are those who scored the best grades in the STEM courses (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) during last year’s O’Level.

The specialized training school headquartered at Nyabihu Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) School will boost the country’s efforts in becoming a regional technology center. Its construction, completed in early 2018, cost the state over Rwf4 billion ($ 4,441,638). In the future, it will welcome more students.

According to Eugene Mutimura, the minister of education, the aim of this school is "to build a knowledge-based economy and nurture our young people to meet the in-demand skills needed to compete at the top of the ever-evolving world. We will link them with respective industries and some top tech-companies locally and internationally for further growth, after the three years training," the minister added.

"In those three years, students will also be sent abroad for 6-months training in some of the leading IT colleges and top tech companies as they share knowledge and experience with their peers and experts," Eugene Mutimura also said. Before adding this: “this coding school will promote excellence in our ICT sector and reduce government expenditure on reliance on foreign companies to provide us with tech solutions."