| AUTHOR | Valerie Taton, Charles Nabongo, Ikem Chiejine and Aloys Kamuragiye |
| ORGANIZATION | UNICEF |
| TYPE | Working Paper |
| DATE | 2007 |
| TOPIC | Budgeting for children |
| LANGUAGE | English |
Enabling every child to access, achieve and complete primary education is perceived as one of the keys to attaining national economic and socio-political development. Rwanda adopted a fee-free education policy in the hopes of enabling all children to participate in primary education. However, a fee-free education is only a partial solution as it does not cover uniforms, scholastic materials, food at school and various forms of child care needed at school and at home, all of which can prove incredibly costly for very poor families. This paper offers a number of policy recommendations, including increasing government investment in the form of subsidies, improving the management of available resources, instituting cash transfers to families taking care of orphans, investing in options designed to improve effectiveness in policy implementation and creating a head-start programme.
