The expenditure on education in the DR Congo is less than 10% of the national budget. More than 80% of which is employed to finance the meagre wages of the teachers, reducing the investment and operating budgets to almost nothing. Consequently, the entire education system, both in the centre and in the provinces, is deprived of material and financial resources. This undermines the quality of education and the parents’ income, as they have to fully finance the cost of schooling their children.
Fortunately, the Ministry of Education recognises this situation and clearly wants to make the necessary changes. This is reflected: in the design of a new law for national education; in the various sector strategies for primary, secondary and vocational education; in the importance of the sector in cooperation agreements; in the will to reform the salaries of teachers; and in the desire to computerise the school system.
The importance of a sound education system as a pillar of progress is also reflected in the presence of many development organisations, including VVOB. Our programme aims to contribute to a better quality of primary and technical agricultural education: by improving the operation of the ‘basic cells’ in the schools, that serve as an autonomous structure for training teachers; a better management of schools; and by renewing teaching in classrooms.
We would essentially like to realise this in cooperation with the inspectorate, that, through its central and decentralised services, basically reaches all schools in this enormous country, with very limited communication capabilities. There also is an important cooperation with the general management for curriculum and teaching materials, whereby working on the content of agricultural education. At the request of the Congolese government, that wants to avoid bringing development on two speeds (Kinshasa and the donor darling provinces against the other, more inaccessible provinces), VVOB is working on a national scale.
Problems are there to be overcome
2009 was a difficult year for VVOB operations in the DRC. Nevertheless, this has not prevented us to work efficiently with our partners and to deliver results.
The forms of the school inspection service were revised to achieve better follow-up of the headmasters and teachers. Via the distribution of laptops and modems in the 30 provinces, communication in this vast country now goes through the Internet, which is significant progress in a country with no postal service. The cooperation between VVOB and APEFE established a website for the inspection service. All files and training modules will soon be available online throughout the country.
Thanks to the cooperation between the Flemish and Congolese school inspection, the notion of “global schools” was introduced. These are combined inspection visits in schools, that should ensure an increase of the work efficiency of inspectors in the field.
In the school year 2010-2011 the technical agricultural education will be revised, thanks to the efforts of VVOB. From September 2010 onwards, the curricula for these new options will be implemented in the 1250 technical secondary agricultural schools. The competence approach, good general school management, entrepreneurship and docimology were resolutely chosen as focal points in the improvement of the quality of technical agricultural education.
VVOB assisted to the development and distribution of educational and didactic materials and training modules for the ‘basic cells’ in the schools, so teachers can train themselves. Several trainings were organised for the pedagogical actors to increase their educational capacity. This capacity development should allow a better framework for education, better management of the schools and improve the educational performance of teachers.
Various departments on formation and control within the school inspection were connected to the Internet and the website of the inspection was thoroughly adjusted with the aim of offering a database. Finally, the SERNAFOR library was renovated, so it can return to its original function.
Challenges in 2010
A big challenge is and remains assessing the reach of our influence and impact on the cascade system within the school inspection in this vast country. We will carefully follow up on our actions and creatively deal with alternative systems, such as working with pilot schools/provinces and carrying out small fact-finding studies to examine our impact. We will also work with school radios to increase the reach of our actions.
A lack of harmonisation of our activities constitutes a major handicap for the impact of our operations in the field. Reality, the large number of primary schools, combined with the limited budget of VVOB, will certainly force us to reflect upon our programme and our flexibility. We will indeed have to look for synergies with other donors.
