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Congo RDC |
EDUCATION
Impoverished parents no longer manage to pay school fees
«Babengani ngai na classe po na minerval» (i.e. «I’ve been sent away from school for not paying school fees»). This is an expression of outrage by a five-year-old child, abandoned on the roadside in tears, calling his «master» an «evil son of the devil», in his disappointment at not being able to realize his first dream, the dream of every kid of going to school. The is the daily refrain of school children in Kinshasa, and also throughout Congo RDC. Payment of school fees by parents is a heavy burden on their pockets, most of whom are badly paid or not paid at all. (The so-called «minerval» referred to above are the school fees which presently have to be paid by parents. Part of these fees go towards the teachers’ salaries, thus encouraging them to do their job properly!)
The declaration issued by the Minister of National Education, Professor Kutumisa Kyota, to renew the minerval system for the school year 2002-2003, has provoked a general outcry among school managers and parents through their representative bodies — the National Association of Parents of Pupils and Students in Congo, and the Association of Parents of Subsidized Catholic Schools. These are calling on the government to take on board once again the responsibility for financing education, and to do away with the fee-paying system — a system which enabled the payment of an incentive bonus to underpaid teachers, to encourage them to teach. After intense negotiations between those responsible for education, (civil society, parents associations and teachers unions) a compromise solution was found which enabled schools to reopen on 9 September 2002.
After several days of negotiations, a draft agreement was drawn up which clearly identifies the State’s responsibility in education, and what the parents have to pay during the present academic year 2002-2003.
The aim is to eventually reduce the parents’ burden and to completely do away with the parents having to pay their childrens’ school fees. However, for this school year, parents will continue to pay school fees but their contribution will only cover expenses judged to be useful and necessary for the daily running of the school i.e. the «motivation fees» destined for teachers», general running expenses, insurance, fees for state examinations and the test at the end of primary school.
From the beginning of the next school year, however, the government promises to begin negotiations for free education at primary level and to reduce the parents’ responsibility for payment of school fees at secondary level. Other fees, such as enrolment fees, monitoring, attestation of results, rehabilitation of infrastructure, purchase of uniforms and hire of school books as well as manual work will be suppressed.
Kinshasa’s governor, Dr. Nku Imbie, has fixed the amount of running expenses for schools in his city. In the first term of this present school year — 550 Congolese francs (2 euros) for children at infant and primary school levels; 700 Congolese francs (2.5 euros) for students in secondary and professional education; 850 Congolese francs (3.2 euros) for students in commercial, social and physical education.
As regards the «fees for motivating teachers», the Governor says: «The rate must not exceed five times the cost of school running expenses».
«You’re fortunate if you can get an education»
The fact is, school fees are not in proportion to parents’ earnings. Taking into account the extreme poverty of the people, and the fees demanded of parents, it’s difficult to halt an even low-level drop-out from school.
During the school year, children are to be found loitering outside school grounds, afraid to return home where they don’t know how to occupy themselves. At the same time, the school, whose job it is to give them a lead and educate them for the future, refuses to receive them because school fees haven’t been paid.
This situation gets worse at the end of the school year, when classrooms are nearly half-empty, thus presenting a real problem of school drop-outs. Because the government has once again said that parents must once again pay the fees for motivating teachers, parents conclude that their children are in danger of losing yet another year of study.
Misenga Nkishi Sarah is a fifth year student at the Teachers Training Institute of Mokengeli in Kinshasa/ Lemba. She says: «You’ve got to be extremely lucky to be able to study nowadays».
Mr Maurice Diatezwa owns a private school in Mont-Ngafula municipality. He mentions the enormous difficulties he has in running his school, because there’s an increasing number of pupils who can’t pay their school fees. «In recent years, it’s hard for pupils to pay school fees, and so it’s proving difficult to pay the teachers’ salaries and to run the school. Many students still owe last years’ school fees, so we’ve been unable to provide most of them with their end-of-year assessments».
Continual backward steps
The Ministry of Education, which is worried about this situation, admits that dropping-out of school has become a reality in the country ever since 1993. At that time, because of the arrears in teachers’ salaries, parents agreed to a plan whereby they would be responsible for paying teachers, to make up for the failure of the State to do its duty. The Catholic School Unit did not agree with this, because it meant the State left the responsibility for schools, even State-run schools, to parents. This refusal meant a loss of a whole school year for students in those particular schools, as they did not re-open until the beginning of the 1993-1994 school year — this time operating under the «parents’ contribution» system.
The fact that parents have had to contribute financially to the running and organisation of schools, has done much to harm school attendance which had reached nearly 90% — a record for Africa. According to official Congolese statistics, 43% of children do not go to school.
The junior minister in charge of primary, secondary and professional education, Mr Mandango Madragule, giving a recent assessment of the situation of education nationwide before the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year, pointed out that the rate of drop-out is highest in the province of Western Kasaï, with 80% of children left out of the school system, followed by the province of Bandungu. The Parents Association gives the figure of nearly 60% of children not attending school for the year 2001-2002.
Many reasons are given for the decreasing number of children attending school. Parents are too poor to pay school fees; government allocations for education have been decreased (from 20% during the presidency of Joseph Kasavubu to 1.9% today); the war situation which has caused the closing of schools in many parts of the country; the poor standard of living among many former students who have completed secondary school or university.
Giving an assessment of education in Congo RDC, UNESCO‘s permanent secretary states that «the educational system in Congo is qualitatively and quantitatively unacceptable, because of a badly understood joint relationship since 1992-1993». With this in mind, UNICEF‘s representative says that: «Congo’s government, parents and students should, as in other modern countries, share the responsibility of financing the Congolese educational system».
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