Setting up schools in an integral part of the mission of the Anglican Church of Congo. The aim is to increase the number of children who have access to an education, to be able to provide employment to those associated with the Anglican Church, and to broaden the mission field for evangelism, as each school is also attached to a local church and has a school chaplain. 

The challenges are huge. The government offers no financial help to build schools, so they are often initially privately funded, or unfinished. It can be a tortuous process to get schools and teachers officially registered and so for a school to receive core funding or for a teacher to receive a salary from the state is far from straightforward. 

Last year the President fulfilled his promise to make access to primary school education free for pupils. But for the schools who rely on small contributions from parents for school books, desks, pens and even salaries, this wasn’t quite such good news. At the same time, the president has committed that each teacher will receive a minimum of $100 / month.

The Diocese of Goma runs 84 schools as well as a theological college and a small university. The schools themselves employ nearly 700 teachers although dozens are still not officially recognised by the state. The Diocese teaches over 12,000 students and opened 23 new schools last year. Most schools meet from 7.30am until 12.30pm from Monday to Saturday.

Snapshot of a primary school in Rutshuru

I get to see many of the annual reports from the schools across the Diocese of Goma, and the situation is eye-opening. Here are the highlights of one such report from a primary school in Rutshuru, north of Goma.

Furniture = 5 blackboards, 50 desks, 1 table, 1 set of shelves, 1 chair, 2 benches.

School books = 56 text books (36 French, 11 Maths, 9 Other), 24 exercise books, 

Teaching materials = 60 pens, 30 boxes of chalk and 3 posters (food types, human skeleton, presidents of DRC)

Library = 5 official books on education.

Boys at the start of the academic year = 158 and at the end = 113 

Girls at the start of the academic year = 94 and at the end = 58

In Year 5 there were only 6 girls at the end of the year compared to 18 boys.

All the teachers are all officially recognised by the state, but receive nothing in addition to this and the administrative staff struggle to find any salary at all. The school has the first 5 primary years at the moment, with an average pass rate at the end of each year of 91%, and in spite of their myriad challenges they plan to add the 6th year. Parents will come to help them build the classrooms.

26 January 2021