The book traces the remarkable efforts in Rwanda to reconstruct the national education system after the 1994 genocide, and to right the wrongs of long decades of discrimination, exclusion and divisiveness practiced in schools. A unique feature of Rwanda's experience is the harnessing of historical research to guide educational policy, and to help understand the causes and the nature of the genocide so as to deliberately avoid re-occurrence.

The book focuses on the inputs of the Ministry of Education and other local organizations, such as the church, in the reconstruction process, features which are often neglected in international reports of rehabilitation. The result is a fascinating analysis of the mosaic of planned and unplanned events. The author concludes that the translation of curriculum messages into new and immediate institutional arrangements in schools-into a hidden curriculum-has proved to be more significant than the more overt and slow-moving changes to the syllabuses.