Basic education for the children of indigenous communities in the DRC: what path forward?

• In Event: Cultural relevance in early education: practical strategies for community engagement and innovation

Proposal

Context. Indigenous pygmy peoples (PA) are present in 21 of 26 provinces in the DRC, numbering between 600,000 and 3 million of the DRC's 100 million inhabitants. Historically a forest-dwelling people, economic pressure on the forest (logging, mining, conservation, preponderance of other communities, etc.) are now outstripping their needs. The dynamics of societal evolution are causing PA communities hardship, particularly in terms of children's education.

PA families face numerous challenges in accessing school. Extreme poverty means that parents often cannot afford school fees and clothing. The curriculum and school calendar do not reflect their semi-nomadic culture and seasonal lifestyle, which means children are unable to follow a normal schooling schedule. Precarious living conditions hinder PA children’s intellectual development. The mobility of parents to hunt and forage game, caterpillars, honey, mushrooms, and other foodstuffs that are increasingly rare given forest degradation is a key factor in the school drop-out rate among PA children. School infrastructure in PA areas are rare and dilapidated. When they do exist, they are so unviable as to call into question the quality of the education provided, due to the poor conditions of buildings, non-compliance with recognized standards in the field of education, and underpaid teachers.1 Youth are the hope of the future, but that of PA children remains uncertain in a rapidly changing world.

The USAID Foundational Literacy for Improved Educational Resilience (FLIER) project is active in 4 provinces, including Equateur, which is home to many PA communities. It is an education project that aims to improve literacy and social skills for marginalized children (PA) aged 6 to 9. In Equateur, FLIER observed prolonged absence (about a quarter of the school year) by children who accompany their parents to live in forest camps in search of caterpillars, game, and mushrooms. Many of them leave school, never to return. Those who re-enter school lag behind the others, ultimately leading to dropout.

Research questions: How can we leverage technology to offer education solutions that meet PA children’s particular needs, and enable them to pursue formal education? During this presentation, we will explore solutions offered within the framework of the FLIER project, the results obtained, and the challenges that persist. During school years 2022-2024, FLIER identified 3 camps where it recruited volunteers to monitor the 126 children in the camps. Three times a week, these children benefited from Interactive Audio Instruction (IAI) lessons, enabling 93 of them to return to school, for a reintegration rate of 74%. In addition, FLIER offered adult literacy instruction to parents, so that they too would be able to keep track of their children’s learning. These are two major solutions that FLIER has put in place to keep PA children in school. The main challenges encountered are the remoteness of the camps, and the presence of camps lasting more than one term, which makes it difficult to reintegrate the children upon return to school. FLIER intends to continue with this strategy in the 2024-2025 school year, extending it to two provinces.

Author

• Julien Nshimba, ALFALIT INTERNATIONAL