DR Congo Background Information

The Democratic Republic of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (also known as Congo-Kinshasa, between 1971 and 1997 called Zaire) is a country in Central Africa with approximately 70 million inhabitants, covering an area about 9.6 times larger than the United Kingdom.

Short overview of Congo’s history

During the first years after independence from Belgium in 1960, Congo was plagued by political instability (“Congo Crisis”) until Joseph Mobutu took power in a military coup and became the country’s 32 year long ruler
The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 also triggered unrest in Eastern Congo, leading to two wars during which Mobutu was overthrown in 1997. The new president, Laurent Kabila, was killed shortly thereafter in 2001 by one of his guards, whereupon his son Joseph took over the presidency. Officially, the war that cost an estimated 3 to 4 million lives was ended in 2003 when a transitional government was appointed. Following the elections in 2006, Joseph Kabila came off as winner. To date, fighting in Eastern Congo still continues.

General education situation in Congo

Although far from perfect, the state of education in Congo is not the worst in Sub-Saharan Africa. With an illiteracy rate of 67% Congo is far ahead of countries like Mali (46%) or Niger (29%). But still, conditions for students in Congo are far from easy. Furthermore, it must be assumed that the quality of education is much worse in the East of the country which has been particularly affected by the wars.

In Congo, there are seven public universities and several other institutions of higher education. Since tuition is very expensive relative to the average income, most Congolese do not have access to university education, not even with a strong academic record. Access to higher education therefore is a privilege of political and economic elites, mainly represented in Kinshasa – and Lubumbashi. Exclusion of the socially deprived population from higher education is generally viewed as negative for the development and reconstruction of the country.

Kindu

Kindu is the capital of the Maniema province in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and suffered badly during the wars from 1996 to 2003. Over the course of five years, large parts of Kindu have been occupied by different rebel groups. In spite of its over 200,000 inhabitants, most of Kindu looks rather like a sizable village. Only in the town centre can one find streets with partly multi-storey buildings made of stone, many shops and a buzzing market. Kindu University and some of its branches are also located in this part of town.

Poverty and unemployment are extreme in Kindu, and infrastructure is desperately underdeveloped. Kindu is not accessible except by plane or the ancient diesel train, which takes approximately a month’s time from Lubumbashi – going by bicycle would therefore be faster. Tarred roads do not exist and the existing roads are impassable with bigger vehicles after 50 to 100 kilometres at most because of destroyed bridges.
This poor infrastructure renders all non-local products very expensive – and a large part of Kindu’s population is undernourished. Furthermore, Kindu does not have power or water supply systems, making life in many areas even more difficult.

Kindu University

The Université de Kindu (Uniki) is a large, but under-equipped building in the Kindu town centre. Power facilities and IT equipment is lacking. The library is poorly equipped as well, and needs assistance in assembling a reasonable stock of books.
Some lecturers have to fly in from Kinshasa, a fact that makes education all the more expensive, but that also ensures that the prestige of the degrees obtained in Kindu is equal to those received at one of the country’s other universities. There are five faculties: Law, Economics, Agronomics, Medicine and Social Sciences.
Since October 2007 “Studieren ohne Grenzen – Students without Borders” supports university students at Kindu University as well as at the other institutions in Kindu that provide university degrees.