Education in Congo: Handbooks for pupils and teachers
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), education is doing poorly due to the many problems schools have to deal with. Often teaching staff is not competent enough because of a lack of pedagogical tools and continued training. Pupils have to share the few books available… In primary school, sometimes pupils have never held a book in their hands.
Books for pupils and teachers
In order to improve the level of primary education in Congo, BTC has been implementing two complementary projects since 2006. The first one supplies French and maths schoolbooks to third and fourth grade classes of primary schools. The second one trains teachers in using these books.
In total, seven million books have been distributed in more than 31,000 registered, public, conventional or private schools. The schoolbooks and the pedagogical guides were first delivered in the cities of Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Goma. There, they were reconditioned per school and put together in lots per sub-division of Primary school, Secondary School and Professional School (EPSP).
By plane, truck, boat, motorbike, bicycle, pirogue and sometimes even on foot… These were the many means used to bring the books to the different sub-divisions. Transport companies have worked relentlessly to bring the planned stocks to their destination. Considering the long distances and the poor state of the roads, it took at least six months for the books to reach all the sub-divisions and two more months for all schools of the country to be supplied.
“Les Champions en Français “ and “Jénovic, Muntu et les Mathématiques” are schoolbooks that are recognized by the Ministry of Education; they comply with the national Congolese educational programme. The books follow the active pedagogical method and a competence-based approach. So, the child does not just memorise and repeat, but he or she has to observe situations, analyse them and rely on knowledge to solve them.
There was a broad awareness-raising campaign linked to the project that focused on the free delivery, and the preservation and protection of these books, so they could be used for a long time. They are owned by the school that makes them available to pupils and teachers who are trained to use them.
The training consisted of three stages: 16 conceptual trainers were trained first; they trained another 2,080 teacher trainers; these again will be training 110,000 teachers and principals. By May 2010, 34,000 teachers and principals of ten educational provinces were trained.
To supervise the distribution of the books and the training of the teachers, since October 2009, the BTC team has visited the field a few times. Even into the most remote areas. This was quite a daunting task, if you consider the size of the territory and the state of the roads. Sometimes, supervisors came to places with no water, electricity or roads, and only had their motorbike to get around. Exposed to the elements, they have often covered long distances. Some repeatedly got stuck in mud or spent the night under the stars in unknown villages. If you ask them, why they take the effort, the answer is clear: “It is well worth the effort to improve Congolese education!"
