2023-02-20
Basic Education : Rethinking Funding to Provide Both Quantity and Quality Education Services
This article was written by Rigo GENE of the Conseil National des ONG de Développement (CNONGD), a member of Forus in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of our capacity development projects with the support of AFD
The general context in the DRC is still dominated by the war imposed on the country by the armed group M23. This armed conflict has led to a severe humanitarian crisis and the forced displacement of local populations. In such a context, it is difficult to fully exercise public freedoms.
It is in this context that the country is preparing for the next presidential, legislative and local elections scheduled for late 2023. The talk on free primary education will be one of the most important issues during the election campaign.
No education system in the world is free of charge and the Democratic Republic of Congo is no exception. The application of the free basic education measure takes into account, on the one hand, the international legal instruments duly ratified by the Democratic Republic of Congo, notably The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Constitution of UNESCO; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the World Declaration on Education for All; the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and on the other hand, the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo of 2006 in its article 43, the Law on the Protection of the Child and the Framework Law No. 14/004 of 11 February 2014 of national education especially in its explanatory statement.
Through these different national and international legal instruments, the above-mentioned objectives constitute the basis of the fundamental orientations of the Congolese State to relieve poor households and to promote access to education for all children, both girls and boys.
Before the implementation of the Free Basic Education Policy, households had a very high contribution of 73% of educational expenses while the shares of the state and external partners were respectively 23% and 4% (RESEN, 2014).
The overall cost of ensuring free education at the primary level from the start of the 2019-2020 school year was more than 225 billion Congolese francs per year, or nearly 2.6 billion USD.
Free education means that the financing of education, in whole or in part, should not be the responsibility of parents but should be taken care of by the State. However, a prerequisite for this is to pay the teaching staff well, increase the number of buildings that meet the standards, ensure in-service training for teachers, etc. To face these challenges of mobilising resources to finance free education, the Central Government and the Provinces are invited to put in place an appropriate strategy to achieve this goal.
Thus, CNONGD and the CSO partners of the education sector, meeting during the National Day of Political Commitment in Kinshasa, on November 21, 2022, have formulated a series of recommendations:
The Central Government should :
- Increase the education budget in line with required costs. The EPST budget should take into account the direct cost elements, notably the remuneration of teachers and agents of the management offices, the responsibility for certification evaluations (TENAFEP etc.), the payment of school running costs; the construction and rehabilitation of schools, including the supply of equipment, school furniture and teaching materials etc.
- Implement institutional and organisational reforms, including absorption and integration of new units; removal of non-essential budgetary structures; rationalisation of agents of the management office in line with EPST norms and standards; strengthening of monitoring and control mechanisms in the use of funds; strengthening of communication and interaction between EPST structures at national and provincial levels; revision of the process or good planning of school creation with regard to the school map
- Use innovative financing to deal with the effects of free basic education which have created significant and growing additional needs, notably the additional cost of taking on new and unpaid units .
- Allocate at least 25% of the national budget to primary and secondary education in order to meet the needs of the vulnerable for access to quality basic education.
- Remove from the nomenclature of fees for the holding of the Test de Fin d'Etudes Primaires (TENAFEP) and the State Examinations (EXETAT): both are already financed by the Central Government and a budgetary line exists for their coverage by the State.
- Sanction any manager of primary, secondary and vocational education in the public sector who charges fees other than those provided for by the legal and regulatory texts in force.
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Permanently update the EPST personnel database.
The Provincial Governments should :
- Refrain from setting fees for TENAFEP and EXETAT which are taken into account in the national budget (Public Finance Act). Each Provincial Executive should, if there are additional needs, align to the Provincial budget or ask the Central Government to budget and execute according to the real needs, as the number of staff is authentic.
- Involve Civil Society in the Education sector in the process of setting fees for 7th and 8th grades for which they have the authorization.
BECAUSE
The right to education is enshrined in our Constitution and research shows that quality education for girls and boys leads to improved health, plays a key role in young people's prospects and life chances, and lays the foundation for learners to flourish in their civic, social, labour market and personal lives.