Qualified lecturers rarely do the teaching in the Congo's private universities. Instead, unqualified assistants take courses that are often obsolete, theoretical and useless for finding a job, says Le Potentiel of Kinshasa.

After 12 years at the private Kongo University, medical students from two intakes gave sworn testimony at Mbanza-Ngungu in Bas-Congo province that their studies had taken five years longer than they should have. The students said the university had no proper teachers and had to use visiting lecturers whose attendance depended on their availability, the newspaper reported.

At Bukavu, 50 students from the first graduation in community development at the Open University were taught their logic course by an assistant. The previous week, they had had no studies because "no teacher was available to take the course" according to one of the students.

The situation is the same in most towns in the Democratic Republic of Congo, says Le Potentiel. Higher education institutions and universities, especially in the private sector, desperately lack lecturers and only 1,400 are available for 1,000 institutions.

Professor Anselme Mbenza, Director-General of the Institut Supérieur de Commerce in Matadi, told the paper: "The low pay for lecturers, the lack of preparation for handing over by those retiring, the will of some lecturers to subjugate their assistants are among the reasons for this deficiency."

Overworked and badly paid, lecturers often combine their teaching with politics or another job which pays better and tops up their salary, says the paper. They flit from one institution to another as visiting lecturers, and also earn extra by selling their syllabuses.

Student Aimée Mbinga of the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales of Kimpese in Bas-Congo told Le Potentiel: "Because they often include practical work and some exercises crop up more often in the exam, we have to get hold of them."

Courses are often rushed, held for two weeks non-stop for a 120-hour programme, reports the paper which quotes a student at Kongo as saying: "It's sometimes tiring following courses from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, to prepare practical work, questions and the examination all at once."

This lack of lecturers had led to graduates who were not up to the required standard to teach and, worse, to so-called 'assistants'.

Philippine Lubelo, who graduated last year from the Institut supérieur d'études informatiques et des finances in Bas-Congo, told the paper all his courses during four years of studies had been taught by assistants.

Professor Ngandu Mutombo, dean of the public University of Lubumbashi, told Le Potentiel: "Regulations do not allow assistants to take courses. They are supposed to help the lecturers and take care of practical work."

Mutombo made known his opposition to "these botched courses given to the country's future managers".

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