Education in D.R.Congo

INTRODUCTION

Education in African societies existed long time ago before the western education; educational specialists have agreed upon a philosophy which was united and constituted the summary of education in Africa, however each and every society has its own way of approaching education.

In congo, modern education started with the foundation of the first schools by protestant missionaries at Palabala in 1878, then the foundation by the French fathers of the holy ghost at Boma in 1880, at Linzola in 18884 and at Kwamouth in 1886; so that at the independence, there existed two kinds of schools; missionaries and lay or official schools. During the second republic, under Mobutu, all schools were nationalized and this took place in 1974 and schools were given back to their original owners in 1977, under a convection which saw the creation of two kinds of schools private and public or government schools. Historians have argued that the nationalization of schools was a mistake because they were given back in a destroyed state. I may say that he took schools destroyed them, corrupt the system a give them back.

We have to recognized the fact that the D.R of Congo, after independence, inherited an educational system which was designed to satisfy colonial need so that the aims, goals and objectives of that system could not serve better the new independent state; more were primary schools children, few secondary schools and a half hand university students.

The Addis-Abbeba conference in 1961, which brought together all the new independent state of Africa under the care of UNESCO gave an ideal setting for most African countries to reformulate the objectif, goal and aim of their education. The leaders of the first republic in D.R. of Congo (1960-1965), worked to put in place an educational system which could respond to the new political, economic and cultural realities; this was a new light in the educational system in Congo, the system 6-6-3 was maintain. However the reform of the second republic of 1974 which started by the nationalization of the universities, primary schools and secondary schools, will put the country in a period which is referred by historians to as “La descente aus enfers du systeme educative”.

After the second republic (1965-1996), the country will enter in a period of conflicts (1996 to the present), a prolonged transition  (2003-2006) so that the country will be facing problems such as lack of peace, democracy, economic and political weakness. All these will determine the goals, aims and objectives of education, hence the philosophy of education of the country, which will be discussed in the following lines.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Philosophy: According to the Alcuin of York, philosophy is an investigation of nature, and such knowledge of things human and Divine as is possible for man.

Plato called it: “the acquisition of knowledge. Thus philosophy studies the existence, knowledge, values, mind and language; it is also the study of the nature, causes or principles or reality of knowledge, or values based on logical reasoning. More importantly, it is the study of the basic principles and concepts, meaning of a particular branch of knowledge. ( De Wulf, 1911)

Education: Benaars (1993) viewed education as the process of becoming or the art of making a child a human person. It is the way or means of producing a complete person – one who had to be developed socially, intellectually, morally and aesthetically.

Sifuna and Otiende (1994), on their part, define education as the entire process of developing human potentialities, abilities, behavior, which is necessary for the daily activities of life.

We can conclude by saying that education is the process of forming an all rounded person for his own good and for the good of all.

Philosophy of Education, from the two analysis of philosophy and education, deals with the educational goals, objectives and aims, so as to arrive at a sound understanding of what we want to get as a result of the educational system we have.  It helps educational thinkers to question and rethink about education.

Therefore talking about philosophy of education in Congo, we will be analyzing the vision, mission, goals and objectives of education.

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION IN D.R.CONGO

The philosophy of education in the country can be spelt out by looking at the “La loi cadre de l’enseignement no 86-005” of 22^nd September 1986, and this stated that: “Education aims at integral and harmonious formation of a responsible Congolese citizen, useful to himself and to the society and capable of promoting the national development of the country and the national culture”. Three important points has to be understood from this point

First: Education has to form citizens who are productive, creative, cultured, conscience, free, responsible and open to social, cultural aesthetic and spiritual values. The program for schools has provided the teaching of work, moral education, civic education, religion, aesthetic, sociology so as to meet this need.

Secondly: the state has to build an inclusive and quality educational system which will contribute efficacy to the economic growth, to fight poverty, to promote peace and mutual cohabitation and democracy.

Thirdly: to form men and women based on human, moral, spiritual and civic values above all, men and women who are creative and have a desire to build a new and democratic Congolese society and finally men and women who are free. (MEPSP, 2010)

Regarding to all these several dispositions were taken such as construction of more schools ( primary and secondary) expending universities in all the towns, put in place the system of education which was and remain 6-6-3 and the building of a curriculum to fit theses needs, objectives and aims. One of the major attempts was the constitutional disposition regarding a free primary education which is found on article 43 and 45 of the new constitution of February 2006.

VISION AND MISSION OF THE GOVERNMENT REGARDING EDUCATION

The government’s vision on education is to have a quality education in the country and make it to be accessible to all and for all. The mission is a holistic formation of a human person by stressing more however on the human part of a person.

Education has to make a person to be more human, for a “Congo nouveau, uni, fort et prospere” translated into English as new Congo, united, strong and prosperous. (MEPSP. 2010)

Therefore the mission of the state via the ministry of education together with all the provincials ministers is to work hand in hand to ensure that the mission and vision of the government is achieved and this is done by controlling the education, giving license to schools, inspecting the schools, evaluating the personnel, making available the materials and controlling their use and to train personnel.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF EDUCATION IN CONGO

When reading “la loi cadre de l’enseignement au Congo” of September 22^nd 1986, as modified and compliment by the “loi-cadre n°14/004 du 11 février 2014 de l'enseignement’’ of February, 11th 2014, We will see that the goals and Objectives of education in Congo are as followed :

The formation of a person in all aspect of life, an all rounded person; to promote African cultural values and languages; to instill in a person the republican values of pluralist democracy and respect of one another; to educate an individual to the sense of patriotism, unity, justice, democracy, liberty and creativity; to instill in a person the sense of holiness and human.

From these goals, the ministry of education did come up with the objectives, which can be summarized as follow:

Human perspective: to form an individual capable of sustaining himself and the society; to form an individual on republican values of democracy, justice, good governance, equality and liberty; an individual who has a sense of sacred and respect for human life.

Socio-political perspective:  education for an integration of an individual in society, to make him conscience of his belonging to the society which is Congo, to make him responsible for the common good.

Economic perspective: to make an individual productive for one’s benefit and for the benefit of all members of the society.

Evaluation of the goals and objectives of education in Congo

Education in D.R. of Congo, still going through a lot of challenges however we have to recognize the effort made by the government so as to achieve those goals, the government has worked in the creation of centers for adult literacy, the construction of several primary schools as well as secondary, expanding universities in the countries and rewriting the curriculum, all these to ensure that education is available for all and for each individual. A lot of efforts were made to bring girls in school since the year 2000, and it has been a success for the country. Efforts have been made in the formation of teachers, and the engagement of teacher by the government have been effective, inspectors of education have been increased so as to have them available in good number so as to ensure that schools are functioning according to the desired curriculum.

But we have also as we said to point some of the challenges which education is facing and those challenges are not helping in attaining the goals; education is facing corruption due to low pay or some schools want to be best in result so they buy exams, insecurity in some part of the countries has made some children to not attend school, education still expensive and the parents are not well paid, and also the teaching and learning materials are lacking in many schools making the teaching and learning process difficult.

Recommendation

After analyzing the philosophy of education in Congo and after looking at the current situation, I would like to suggest that education to focus more on community integration and community development, stress more in cultural education and environmental education; to give equal chance to student to access the same learning materials, help students understand more their country, develop a curriculum for national languages.

I would like to end by saying that the actual education is producing individual who are strange to their own environment, so that there are not able to exploit it fully for themselves and for all the society, unless the philosophy of education be oriented toward the understanding of the country and its people, otherwise education will not be effective to give a response to the current problems facing by the nation.

Conclusion

To sum up this paper, in which I discussed the philosophy of education in D.R. of Congo by talking about the goals, aims and objectives of education which is just an integral formation of an individual for his own good and for the good of the country as this was the vision of the government since independence but still facing some problems which we discussed earlier and called for the contribution from the government and all the stakeholders, to ensure that all the necessary are given to educators so as they can fulfill their duty. I talked also about orienting education to the need of the country because , we still need education to uplift the difficulties facing the country such as war, economy and political problems, hence we have the potential of solving those problems by ourselves but we are not aware.    

REFERENCES

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