Secondary Education in Rwanda and Kenya- Focusing on critical thinking and career development-

English Summary In 2013, the East African Community (EAC) proposed the 2013 Harmonised Curriculum Framework, which emphasizes the importance of harmonizing curricula at both primary and secondary levels and including the necessity of Competence-Based Education. In line with the Harmonised Curriculum, Rwanda, one of the EAC member states, has introduced a new curriculum called Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC) to its pre-primary, primary and secondary education in January 2016. Compared to its previous, Knowledge-Based Curriculum, application rather than acquisition of knowledge is more emphasized in learning. The teaching method also shifted from teacher-centered to learner-centered which encourages students to think more instead of teachers just giving them knowledge. CBC is designed to improve two categories of students’ competences: basic and generic competences. Importance of critical thinking, recognized as one of the generic competences, is often highly emphasized in all competence-related frameworks. However, the question is Can CBC really enhance students’ critical thinking? This study therefore investigated the attitudes and critical thinking skills of Rwandan students. Since CBC underlines critical thinking for rational career, the relationship between critical thinking and career development of students was also observed. This study was carried out in Nyagatare and Huye districts in September 2016, involving a questionnaire survey targeting 400 students from three schools in total. They were students of Senior 4 and Senior 5, which were 200 each in number. Since CBC is still in a transitional phase and introduced to the curricula of Pre-primary, Primary 1, Primary 4, Senior 1 and Senior 4 as of 2016, this study compared Senior-4 students experiencing the implementation of CBC with Senior-5 ones learning with the former curriculum. It allowed me to analyze to what extent the new curriculum has positive impacts on students in critical thinking. My fieldwork included not only three types of questionnaires, but also classroom observation and interviews with teachers and students. These surveys were designed as part of follow-up studies, and the further trip to Rwanda will take place in September 2017. In addition, the survey involving the use of the same questionnaire was conducted in Westlands Nairobi, Kenya. Its results are referred and compared for better understanding of the situation in Rwanda. Although a Competence-Based Curriculum has not been officially developed in Kenya yet, there have been some attempts to take learner-centered methodology into practice. The survey was carried out in October and November 2016, targeting Form-2 students attending national and county schools. This