EPDC Spotlight on the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a low-income, landlocked country in sub-Saharan Africa bordered by 9 countries. It is known both for its vast natural resources and its complex history of conflict.  The second largest country in Africa and the eleventh largest country in the world, it has a population of nearly 80 million, 42% of which lives in urban areas.

Figure 1. Democratic Republic of the Congo

In recent years, economic development has improved: in 2014, economic growth rates were at 8.7%, up from 2.8% in 2009 and high in comparison with sub-Saharan African averages; inflation also decreased from 53% in 2009 to 1% in 2013.  The poverty rate, however, remains high, at 63% in 2012. The country’s Human Development Index is also the second-to-lowest in the world, and its per capita income, $220 in 2012, is among the world’s lowest. 

Since its independence in 1960, the DRC has witnessed intrastate and non-state conflicts at the regional, national, and local levels.  Local conflicts are myriad  and frequently interrelated with conflicts at the regional and international levels, especially in the country's Eastern Provinces, where state institutions have been generally weak and ineffective.  Approximately 5 million people have died since 1997 as a result of recurring conflict.  The conflict from 1998-2003, “The Second Congo War,” sometimes referred to as “Africa’s First World War,” involved more than seven African countries and resulted in 3 million deaths.  Following a peace agreement in 2003 and democratic elections in 2006, the conflict began its second phase in 2006.  This iteration of the conflict ended through a March 23, 2009 agreement, but recurred again in 2012 when the movement known as M23 (referring to the date of the agreement) protested the slow implementation of the agreement.  Although M23 was defeated by government-supported UN forces in 2013, a small group, Alliance des patriotes pour un Congo libre et souverain (the Patriotic Alliance for a Free and Sovereign Congo), began fighting against the government (having earlier been aligned with the government) in the same year.  Non-state conflicts and one-sided violence have continued in other parts of the country, especially in the Kivu regions of Ituri and Katanga. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has remained active in the DRC as well, taking advantage of poor governance in the country's northeast. 65 LRA attacks were reported in early 2014. The DRC has also been involved as a secondary party to conflicts in Rwanda.

Legacies of the conflict include an estimated 2.7 million displaced persons and refugees in the country, approximately 323,000 DRC nationals living in refugee camps outside of the country, and persisting humanitarian emergencies in parts of the country. Rampant sexual violence in the DRC has been another widespread effect: in 2007, UNICEF reported 18,000 survivors of rape in Eastern DRC, half of whom were children; in a 2010 study which surveyed 1005 households in Nord- and Sud-Kivu provinces and Ituri district, 39.7% of women reported experiences of sexual violence in their lifetime. 

Education System

The DRC’s academic year begins in September and ends in July, and the official primary school entrance age is 6. The system is structured so that the primary school cycle lasts 6 years, lower secondary lasts 2 years, and upper secondary lasts 4 years. The country has a total of 15,899,000 pupils enrolled in primary and secondary education. Of these pupils, about 12,005,000 (76%) are enrolled in primary education.

Conflict and Education in the Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, both the threat of attacks and abduction as well as displacement are especially relevant mechanisms when considering how conflict might affect schooling in the country’s Eastern provinces. In the period 1990-2013, 2.7 million children died as a result of the conflict, while an estimated 7,000 child soldiers remained in armed groups and government forces (as of 2011).  Many children have not attended school for other conflict-related reasons, including instability and displacement.

Attacks on schools, students, and teachers; the occupation of schools by military forces and armed groups; and the abduction of teachers and students en route to and at school have been documented by the UN, Human Rights Watch, and other groups.  From 2009-2012, most attacks against schools occurred in the DRC’s Eastern provinces, where conflict between rebel groups and the Congolese army was the most active.  The emergence in 2012 of the insurgent group M23 corresponded with a dramatic increase in attacks against schools, mostly in Nord- and Sud-Kivu.

In recent years, military use of schools has also posed a persistent challenge to schooling operations.  In 2012, military use of schools by the Congolese army and other militia groups was prevalent, especially in Katanga province, where, as of March 2013, 64 schools were reported to have been occupied by armed groups.  

Numerous incidents of the recruitment of children as child soldiers en route to and at school have been reported as well. In 2013, a total of 147 abductions (70 girls and 77 boys) were reported, the majority of which occurred in Orientale Province and in Nord-Kivu.

These figures suggest that education might be affected, even severely, in a number of regions and through multiple avenues.  We might expect to see relatively low participation in, progression through, and completion of schooling in especially conflict-affected areas, as students fear traveling to and/or attending school and quality of learning decreases due to attacks and the threat of attacks.  Gendered effects may also be present: because of the prevalence of sexual violence against women and girls, we might expect girls’ participation in, progression through, completion of, and performance in schooling to be lower than boys’. 

This blog post focuses on household survey data extracted from DHS 2013 data, drawing attention to gender and regional inequalities as well as regions where fatalities and incidents of conflict were especially high in the period 2009-2013, such as Orientale, Nord-Kivu, and Sud-Kivu (see Figure 2).  Conflict data is taken from the Armed Conflict and Event Location Dataset (ACLED), Version 5 (1997-2014), using the country file for the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Educational Inequalities

Looking at DHS data for 2013 (Figure 3), it is apparent that inequalities are much more present at the secondary level than at the primary level.  Inequalities are unremarkable at the primary level, although it is interesting that there is no clear pattern across wealth quintiles. The discrepancies, however, are very noticeable at the secondary level, where there is a more than 30% discrepancy between urban and rural gross attendance rates, and males exhibit gross attendance rates of 84%, while females’ are at 58%.  Further, while secondary gross attendance rates among the richest quintile are 99%, they are significantly lower among the poorest quintile, at 48%. 

Looking at a more nuanced view of primary gross attendance rates across regions in Figure 4, it is apparent that they are slightly higher for males than for females in most areas.  The exceptions are Maniema, Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, and Bas-Congo.  

Considering secondary gross attendance rates, it is notable that they are much lower than primary gross attendance rates, ranging from 46% to 99% for females and 62% to 102% for males.  Across all regions, male gross attendance rates are higher than female gross attendance rates, and frequently, much higher, except in the case of Kinshasa.  The largest discrepancy can be found in Maniema, where male gross attendance rates are 110% and female gross attendance rates are 52%.

Gender inequalities can also be found among completion rates (see Figure 5).  Across regions, male 15-24 year-olds have higher rates of at least primary school completed, except in the case of Kinshasa, where female 15-24 year-olds' rates of at least primary school completion are 1.6 percentage points higher than male 15-24 year olds' completion rates.  Excluding Kinshasa, the discrepancies range from 13.4 percentage points in Bandundu to 23.4 percentage points in Equateur.  

The percentage of 15-24 year olds who completed at least secondary school in 2013 is overall much lower across all regions than the percentage of 15-24 year-olds who completed at least primary school.  Kinshasa has the highest percentage of 15-24 year olds with at least secondary schooling, but it is still less than half of this age group.  Gender discrepancies are noticeably larger among secondary completion rates than among primary completion rates: the percentage of male 15-24 year olds who completed at least secondary school is nearly twice as high as the percentage of female 15-24 year olds who completed at least seconary school in Equateur, Maniema, Kasai-Occidental, Bandundu, and Kasai-Oriental.

Gender inequalities are especially apparent when looking at 15-24 year olds in urban versus rural areas (see Figure 6).  While urban rates of at least primary and secondary completed are nearly the same, rural rates of at least primary and secondary completed present a gaping difference between males and females.

Participation in Schooling in Conflict-Affected Areas

Looking at Figures 7-8, it is apparent that, with the exception of Sud-Kivu, the three provinces with the highest number of fatalities from 2009-2013 also have the highest percentage of 15-24 year olds who had no formal education in 2013, as well as the highest percentage of out-of-school 7-14 year olds in 2013.  (Note that the data on number of fatalaties covers 2009-2013, while the data on percentage of 15-24 year olds with no formal education and the percentage of 7-14 year olds out-of-school are from 2013.)  The provinces of Equateur and Katanga, which have relatively high fatalities from 2009-2013, also exhibit relatively high rates of 15-24 year olds with no formal education and high rates of out-of-school 7-14 year olds. It is interesting, however, that in Kinshasa, the capital city, fatalities were relatively high from 2009-2013, at 188, but education indicators generally performed well in 2013; for example, only 6% of 7-14 year olds were out of school in 2013 as compared with 19% in Nord-Kivu.

Among other data sources, unique EPDC data collections for the DRC include administrative data from the Ministry of Education (2009, 2010), household survey data from DHS (2013), MICS (2000, 2010), indicators derived from UIS data, and learning outcomes data including PASEC (2010).  See more by exploring EPDC’s national education profile for the DRC as well as the DRC country landing page.  By doing an advanced data search on EPDC’s database, you can download the DRC data and search by the specific source (e.g., household survey data) that you are looking for.