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How a Rwandan school starts e-learning: the device numbers, what research says, every real step of starting on Ganzaa, and a simple rollout plan.
Before you choose any platform, look at two numbers from Rwanda's latest household survey. In 2024, 34.3% of Rwandan households owned a smartphone: 69.2% in the City of Kigali and 22.9% in rural areas. Only 5.0% owned a computer (NISR, EICV7 Poverty Profile, Table 4.6).
Those numbers will shape your rollout more than any feature list. A Kigali school can expect most families to have a smartphone at home. A rural school can expect fewer than one in four. Either way, a plan that needs every student to have a device at home will leave students behind.
This playbook has two parts. The first is what starting on Ganzaa actually involves, step by step. The second is the rollout advice I would give any school, whatever platform it picks. I run Ganzaa, so read part one as a description of our product and part two as my opinion, backed by research where there is research.
J-PAL (the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab), a global research centre, summarised the rigorous experiments on education technology (evidence review). Two findings matter for a school:
Most of these studies come from richer countries, so use them as a guide, not a promise. The lesson still travels: devices don't teach. What you are setting up is regular practice, marked quickly, with a teacher who looks at the results.
Schools don't sign themselves up. The Ganzaa team sets up each school, and our stated aim is that a school can be live within two weeks. There is nothing to install: Ganzaa runs in the web browser on any phone, tablet or computer. Here is what happens, in order.
On the demo page, give your name, your school and a phone or WhatsApp number. You can add a preferred date and time, plus anything else, such as how many students and grades you have. You don't need an account. The team then calls or WhatsApps you to set a time. The demo is a free 30-minute call. (How booking works.)
Each school has a private space. Its members see only their own school's people, lessons and results. Your school code is part of the web address: ganzaa.org/ followed by the code.
Features are switched on one by one for each school, including chat, the AI helper, games, live quizzes, assignments, the library and past papers. My advice: switch on fewer than you think. Every feature is one more thing a teacher has to explain.
An admin invites each teacher by email from Academics → Instructors, then ticks the subjects they teach in that grade. Those subjects become the teacher's My Subjects. An invitation link works for 7 days. Don't give teachers the school code: it always joins people as students (invite a teacher).
A grade can be split into class groups such as 3A and 3B, each with its own teacher for each subject (class groups). Academic years let you promote students at the end of the year (academic years). Settings → Roles & Access decides what each staff role can see and change (roles and permissions).
One teacher can try it with a real class first. Any teacher can set up their own class. Ganzaa checks the teacher's identity before any student can join, and the free plan has room for 5 students and one class. Students join at ganzaa.org/join with the class code, a link or a QR code. A student under 16 waits for a parent to say yes.
Everything in this part is advice, not a feature list.
Pick one person who can make decisions and has time to follow up: a deputy, the director of studies or the ICT teacher. "Everyone is responsible" usually means no one follows up when logins fail in week one.
Ask each class who can use a smartphone at home, even a parent's. Count the school's working computers and tablets. Then plan in-school time for students with nothing at home, and treat home use as a bonus. Don't set homework that only some students can do.
Ganzaa needs an internet connection; it has no offline mode. Test in the room you will use, at the hour you will use it, with a full class signed in. Keep a phone hotspot as a backup for the teacher's screen.
Maths is a good first subject. Answers are clearly right or wrong, so automatic marking works well, and the J-PAL review found the clearest results in maths. Add a second subject only when the first one runs without the owner in the room.
The rest can wait until teachers ask for it.
Rollouts usually stall on accounts. A live quiz avoids them. The teacher puts a PIN and a QR code on the classroom screen, and students join at ganzaa.org/live from any phone with just a nickname: no account and no app. A teacher can build the game from a lesson's practice questions (quiz from a lesson), and the game ends itself 30 minutes after it starts. Students without phones can play in pairs or small teams on a shared one.
A teacher's class page has a Needs you list: work waiting to be marked, homework that is due, and how many students haven't been active this week, with their names. School leaders get a dashboard with active students, lessons completed, practice and average scores, by subject and grade. Follow up on names, not averages: the students who haven't been active this week are your Monday conversations.
A parent can follow a child once they are linked. The student makes a code in Settings → Family (it works for one hour), and the parent types it into their own account (invite a parent, parent guide). A linked parent sees learning time, lessons finished, average score and minutes per subject. A short message is enough:
Example: "From Monday, [class] will practise [subject] on Ganzaa during school, on [days and time]. To follow your child's progress, ask them for a parent code from their Ganzaa account. Questions? Reply to this message."
The ready-made lessons and the practice exams follow Rwanda's competence-based curriculum (CBC), and your teachers can also build your own grades, subjects, units and questions (Ganzaa for Schools).
| Step | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| Before the demo | Head and owner | Choose the first grade and subject, count devices, test the classroom connection |
| Setup | Ganzaa team and owner | School space, feature switches, student accounts, teacher invitations |
| First lesson | Teacher | A live quiz; students sign in and choose their own password |
| First week | Teacher | One self-marking assignment |
| Second week | Owner | Check who hasn't been active this week, follow up with them, decide on a second subject |
If you lead a school, book a free 30-minute demo. Bring your device count and the grade you want to start with, and we will plan your start around them.
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Ganzaa is Rwanda's online learning platform — free for individual students, with REB-aligned practice and past papers. Schools get the first term free.