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Fools run where angels fear to tread, but all the angels are in heaven and few of the fools are dead

Articles of Interest
ASEAN Land Bridge Education in the DRC

Introduction
The current Education System in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been destroyed by decades of conflict although recent years have shown an improvement. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a country located almost in the direct center of Africa. Years and years of civil war In the country has left millions displaced and the government shattered throughout the different regions. With a GDP per capita just at $400, many government based programs such as basic education have been left underfunded and underdeveloped. The education in the DRC was last measured in 2010 which showed that of the entire governments GDP only 2.5% was being devoted to education ranking 159/173. With such a poor educational system in place many international organizations researchers are currently looking at what kind of system is being used now as well as what plans can be conducted in the future to ensure that the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo will be educated with both primary and secondary education.

Current Situation
The current situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is very bleak from any perspective especially for an educational one. With one of the of the world’s deadliest civil wars happening the chaos surrounding the entire country has earned the label of Humanitarian Crisis. With over 1.9 million people displaced since the beginning of current civil war many have had to migrate farther and farther from cities and towns in order stay alive. Of the 10 provinces the hardest hit by a lack of education are the North and South Kivu. More than 42% of children in these provinces have never even been to school.

Public Education
There is also no current public education programs so wealthier citizens have turned to private school for their children. The tuition prices that the private institutions are incredibly high and way out of the reach of thousands of uprooted refugees. If this trend continues researchers worry it will rapidly widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

Current Conflicts with the Education System
The largest issue with the educational problem in the DRC is that the children and families are afraid to go to school. The rebel armies of the DRC such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and the National Congress for the Defence of the People are infamous for their use of child soldiers. Schools are one of the main ways these children are abducted and enslaved by these groups.

Child Soldiers
The lack of help and resources internally has forced the DRC to ask for help from the outside world. The biggest international supporter of educational programs in the region is the United Nations (UN). Unfortunately the UN has had to deal with large fluctuations in commitment for aid for the DRC in the past decade. In 2002 the international commitment was less than 100 million USD and in 2007 it peaked above 250 million USD. On top of this uncertainty from donors the UN also has to deal with the local end of corruption and embezzlement of the funds raised. In 2008 2% of the total funds raised for education never made it to the teachers and children that desperately need it. With all of these issues there is more research being done with how to focus the funding on what the country’s children currently need.

OPEQ
A major project that is devoted to the educational problems is Opportunities for Equitable Access to High Quality Basic Education (OPEQ). This organization of researchers studies into different countries’ current systems and can make recommendations for current systems based their findings. The DRC is very interesting case study for OPEQ because it gives a real life perspective on a heavily war torn nation. After researching 203 schools from Katanga the researchers found what the current educational system needs to focus more on. Math and English were the top under taught subjects. The national language of French was not being taught enough with many children only speaking the region’s language of Kingwana. With these results OPEQ predicts that the Congloese children have the ability to improve their reading and math scores up to 30% in the coming year of 2013. These optimistic predictions are a sign that this failed educational system is slowly recovering with the help of the scuentists and researchers, international community, and the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UNICEF
Another major supporter of education in the DRC is the United Nations Child Fund (UNICEF). Although the organization has suffered from extreme under funding, UNICEF is still trying to bring emergency safe education to the local children. In North Kivu alone, UNICEF has identified 258 schools which have been looted and/or burnt following attacks and following their occupation by armed groups, imperiling the start of the school year in September for 60,000 children. Despite global recognition of the importance of education in emergencies, education still remains greatly underfunded. UNICEF has only been able to raise 8% of their total goal of 8 million dollars. This funding would allow 228,000 children access to safe and protective education. This would include: establishment of temporary learning spaces, adaptation of the school calendar; reinsertion of children into an appropriate learning environment, psychosocial and recreational activities; awareness raising on life-saving and life-sustaining messages, training of teachers on psychosocial support, peace education and class management, and provision of teaching and learning materials and catch-up classes. Education is a critical protective tool to build preparedness and resilience against future disasters in an ever-changing environment.