St Gertrude Girls Secondary School has the motto – ‘the future is in our hands’ and their mission is ‘to provide high quality and integrated secondary education’. This secondary school is one of the well-established schools in Kisoro. It is situated in full view of the famous Virunga Volcanoes home to the world famous endangered mountain gorillas.
 
It opened on the 1st June 1981 with 64 students as a result of the combined efforts of catholic parents who wished to have a local girls’ school.
In 1996 the school had shown the capacity of excelling at whatever cost and started advanced level where up to now it still dominates the best performance charts in the district.
 
Limited funding leads to problems, for example out of 30 teaching staff, 6 are female, only 9 are on the government payroll making it hard for the school to hire more qualified teachers given that the money paid by parents is insufficient to meet the expenses. This hinders further infra structural or other enhancements.
 
The future is very bright in academics and other sectors with the ever-increasing commitment of the staff. The students are well disciplined and eager to conserve the environment starting from the school compounds and its surroundings. Like the other schools they too have a very active ‘wildlife club’.
 
The school has 548 girls aged between 13 years and 22 years.
 
This secondary school needs help from volunteers particularly teachers, and are especially in need of teachers on a long-term voluntary post from around the world. They need help in all areas, especially English literature and they have a shortage of books particularly English literature. Sport is another area where they are desperate for help, not only in equipment but qualified sports teachers.
 
There are well-established buildings in place and the infrastructure was greatly helped along with help from parents, the government, and donations from friends in the Netherlands. There are 3 laboratories, a dining room, a library, dormitories and a good number of classrooms.
There is a vocational centre where students carry out different professions such as catering and tourism management, accountancy, secretarial and computer literacy, home management etc.
 
The school admits students from different religions despite its strong catholic foundation.