As one consequence of these arrangements, it was impossible to determine the amount actually spent on education. As another consequence, many of the provinces were unable to meet their financial obligations in the education field. Some schools were forced to close. Many primary school teachers reportedly worked for months without receiving salaries. In May 1963, thousands of primary school teachers, demanding payment of salary arrears, went out on strike. They continued the strike through the remainder of the 1962-63 school year. The Central Government then took steps to rectify the situation. In the fall of 1963 it provided funds to pay the unpaid teacher salaries. In April 1964 it enacted a new teacher pay law. Retroactive to October 1, 1963, this law (Ordinance No. 85 of April 3, 1964) set up a new salary scale and provided for salary increases. In October 1963, following the series of strikes, the central Ministry of Finance began to make payments directly to the schools entitled to receive aid instead of making payments to the provincial governments. But primary education particularly had already suffered considerably from the earlier financial arrangements and practices. During the first post independence years the cost of the educational system, so far as can be determined, spiraled upward. Some of the funds voted for education never reached the schools. time (as the chapter on administration indicates) the State was providing funds to the subsidized schools without in fact requiring that they maintain state-established standards or exercising any real control or supervision over them. Developmental Planning and Control At the same It can hardly be said that the outpouring of funds during the first 4 postindependence years resulted in the rational development or reshaping of the educational system in relation to the country's needs. Only to a small degree has the state either planned or controlled the development of the system it finances to assure that funds are invested in productive sectors. More than one report of the central education ministry asserts that enrollment expansion and distribution at different levels has continued to be largely the result of occasional and dispersed action which the responsible authorities confirm after, rather than direct before, it has been initiated. As of 1964 the Government had not approved a plan for the development of the educational system as a whole, and was only beginning to exercise ade Secondary expansion targets set forth in a November 1961 ministry report seem to have been regarded as a short-term plan, and a major program of reform and expansion at the secondary level was put into motion. Higher education has also expanded apace. These sectors— obvious priorities in the Congo-were both developing rapidly, with considerable external financial and technical assistance. Most of the funds available for education, however, went to primary schools. The majority of these schools gave only 2 years of schooling; they did not provide education of sufficient length or quality to have any lasting results. The state did not require that they do so as a condition for subsidies. It did not cut off the subsidies for the first two grades until 1964–65. Central Ministry reports leave no doubt that officials in this Ministry have recognized the need for (1) a rational overall plan for the development of education, that is, a plan drawn up within the framework of a general economic and social development plan and based on projected manpower requirements; and (2) adequate state controls to assure that state funds are spent and development occurs in accord with objectives which the State defines. As of early 1965 the Congo Government had not yet approved and implemented an overall economic and social development plan. In 1963 the Government's planning ministry published a document containing general principles for a 5-year development plan. In 1964 this ministry requested assistance from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in drawing up such a plan, and ECA submitted a document containing a broad outline of a plan and suggesting a period of 1 or 2 years for laying groundwork for its future implementation." In the absence of an overall plan, the central education ministry completed some work on an educational development plan for the Congo. In the fall of 1961 at the request of the National Minister of Education and Fine Arts, UNESCo specialists started preparatory work on such a plan. Working without data concerning probable future. economic development of the country and without the results of a manpower survey then underway, these specialists completed a study in November 1961 on the then current situation and prospects for the Congo's educational development. Further planning efforts were hindered by shortage of qualified staff and statistical data, uncertainty as to future decisions regarding the division of responsibility between Out • United Nations Economic and Social Council. Economic Commission for Africa. lines and Selected Indicators of African Development Plans. E/CN.14/336. January 15, 1965. p. 55. 7 L'Education au Congo-Situation et perspectives de développement. Leopoldville: Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts, 1961. Processed. the central ad provincial governments, and inadequate governmental supervision of education.8 During 1963 and 1964 a research and planning service (which had a statistical section), organized in the central ministry, was to continue work on an educational plan. As part of its "Emergency Programme for Africa" for 1963 and 1964, UNESCO sent a team of three experts to the Congo to assist the authorities in planning operations. As part of its regular program for 1965 and 1966, UNESCO will continue to provide this planning team.” Central ministry reports express a clear policy as to the way in which the educational system should develop. The November 1961 report maintained that the principal objective of a short-term policy must be to bring the educational system (whose excesses and blind alleys foreshadowed a dangerous sociocultural disequilibrium of Congolese society) back into balance and make it capable of expansion. Not surprisingly, this report also stated that properly oriented development of secondary education is an objective of absolute priority and set forth the secondary expansion targets which apparently came to be regarded as a short-term plan.10 The same report and later ones of the central education ministry also stress the need for bringing the state-financed primary structure back into balance, maintaining that the majority of the country's children still do not complete schooling of sufficient length or quality to have any permanent effect on them. The reports propose that the state should subsidize only those schools which meet its standards as to (1) program length and content and (2) teachers' qualifications. One central ministry report declares that in the absence of measures such as these to increase the yield of primary education, money spent on primary education is not an investment but a waste of public funds. The ECA Outline plan mentioned previously proposed as 5-year educational targets: (1) introducing universal and compulsory primary education, (2) doubling or even quadrupling secondary enrollment, and (3) raising higher education enrollment to 8,000. s International Conference on Public Education, Geneva 1962. Educational Planning (Publication No. 242). Geneva International Bureau of Education. Paris UNESCO, p. 35. 1962. 9 UNESCO. Approved Programme and Budget for 1963-1964. Paris: The Organization, 1963. p. 112, 114-115. UNESCO. Approved Programme and Budget for 1965-1966. Paris: The Organization, 1965. pars. 330-31. 10 At a conference held in Leopoldville in November 1961, educational authorities when considering this report "... expressed the firm desire that secondary education should be dealt with first and foremost and that no limitation other than that imposed by restricted resources in plant and teachers should be allowed to hinder its rapid development.” Rapport d'Activite No. 13 sur les Operations Civiles des Nations Unies au Congo au Cours INCE INDEPENDENCE, primary education in the Congo has undergone S no real basic reform. As in the past, it remains the most expensive, but also the most unbalanced and most unproductive, sector of the country's entire educational system. It has suffered considerably from the provincial governments' inability to meet their financial obligations. Although some efforts have been made to improve schooling at the primary level, it may well be argued that the situation has seriously worsened since independence. Structure and Program Reform A complete structure and program reform of primary education has been instituted legally: The old dual structure of ordinary versus selective education and the old diversity of programs (ordinary, selective, and metropolitan) have given way to a single 6-year structure and a single program for all schools. One report refers to a first reform of primary education as having occurred in July 1961. In any event, a commission on the reform of primary education, composed of representatives of all the provinces and UNESCO and Belgian experts and charged with preparing a unified program for all primary schools, met for the first time in June 1962. Order No. 174 of October 17, 1962, signed by the Head of State, provided for a single structure and a single national program. The new national program prepared by the reform commission (apparently adopted in July 1963) was introduced at the beginning of the 1963-64 school year. According to a 1963 ministry report, the national program is to be followed in principle by all official and subsidized schools, and primary education is 6 years in length, divided into three cycles. 1 République du Congo. Ministère de l'Education Nationale. Rapport sur le Mourement éducatif en 1962-63 présenté à la 26ème Conférence internationale des Ministres de l'Instruction publique-Genève, Juillet 1963. June 17, 1963. p. 6. Processed. United Nations Operation in the Congo. Report on Civilian Operations in 1963. 30 April 1964. p. 31. Processed. The post independence program seems to be that of the former metropolitan system schools, adapted to Congolese needs by the reform commission mentioned above. The reform program calls for teaching in French as soon as possible, with the vernacular languages used only during a very brief period after children first enter school. The commission apparently will continue its work, progressively revising the program to adapt it even further to Congolese requirements. The extent to which the program reform will actually be effectuated is one of the important questions for the future. An April 1963 central ministry report stated that despite the October 17, 1962 order the teaching level varied a good deal from region to region and continued to decline. In many places the primary program was given in the local language until the third, fourth, or (in some instances) the fifth year. Despite an increase in the number of children graduating from primary school, it was still difficult to recruit from among them a group adequately prepared for secondary studies.3 Enrollment Total Enrollment.-Having incomplete data, the Ministry of National Education estimated total 1960-61 and 1961-62 enrollment in all official, subsidized, and nonsubsidized primary schools (which together had 1,644,000 pupils in 1959-60) at 1,730,000 and 1,820,000, respectively. A mid-1964 ministry report and a UN report on 1963 indicated that total 1962-63 primary school enrollment was 1,933,000. A European Economic Community mission report gave total enrollment at the beginning of calendar 1963 (school year 1962-63) as 1,800,000. A later Ministry report gave the figure 1,893,914. According to a 1963 central ministry of education report, total enrollment in official and subsidized primary schools rose to some 1,750,000 in 1962-63 as contrasted to the 1959-60 enrollment in these schools of 1,460,000. This report explains that the increase reflected not only a greater number of children attending these schools, but also the integration into the subsidized system of nonsubsidized primary schools, which in 1960 enrolled some 180,000 pupils. In 1963-64, the year in which a fairly complete school census was taken, total primary enrollment reached 1,995,000. Enrollment Rate.-According to a 1963 report of the central education ministry, the apparent primary school enrollment rate (that is, 3 République du Congo. Gouvernement Central. Ministère de l'Education Nationale. 5éme Direction. L'Education Nationale en 1962-Conjoncture et Problèmes. Léopoldville, |