Reforms in university system progressing – but slowly

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) ambitious plans to reform its universities and higher education system are progressing steadily, although faced with challenges.

Higher education administrators and government officials are now working through the requirements of the new system, having already received a December 2022 decree establishing the grade designations of graduates for the new Licence-Master-Doctorate (LMD) system.

This decree completes the regulatory framework for the implementation of the LMD system in the DRC, also fixing the names of academic degrees awarded in the country.

A slow process

The new LMD system has been slow to arrive. It was based on Framework law No 14/004 on national education, adopted in 2014 (after 10 years’ discussion).

This three-level organisation of post-secondary education undertaken across Europe under the Bologna Process standardises higher education courses and facilitates recognition of degrees in different countries, aiding student mobility.

While the then minister of higher and university education ordered in 2021 that the LMD system should apply across the DRC from the 2021-22 academic year, different course lengths and structures persisted.

This was partly because the 2022 decree was still awaited. Among the courses that have been non-compliant are diploma programmes longer than three years, licence (bachelor) courses longer than three years, masters degrees lasting less than two years, doctorates of more than three years, certificate programmes with unclear durations, part-time courses with excessive durations and online courses without proper validation.

In December 2023, the then DRC minister of higher and university education, Muhindo Nzangi, accepted in Congolese media that the late implementation regulation was behind the delay: “A decree establishing the grade designations of graduates of each cycle was still missing.”

The original 2014 law had foreseen the “gradual introduction” of the LMD system in the DRC “to harmonise curricula in higher and university education and to promote the mobility of staff and students on a global scale”.

While this slow implementation has certainly been manifested, the minister said the LMD system offers education better adapted to the needs of the labour market and will strengthen the international competitiveness of Congolese universities.

Minister Muhindo Nzangi was replaced by Marie-Thérèse Sombo Ayanne Safi in June 2024.

Views on the reforms

These reforms have also been welcomed by most lecturers and students, although some blamed the government for not providing enough funds to help in the transition.

“The government has not yet put up the budget to support the LMD system. All public and private universities are involved in the reforms,” said, Dr Gertrude Muganda Nzigire, who teaches the management of health policies and systems at the Free University of the Great Lakes Country (Université Libre des Pays des Grands Lacs – ULPGL), in Goma, the capital and largest city of the North Kivu province.

She said that, during the past DRC presidential campaign in December (2023), the ultimate victor and incumbent President Félix Tshisekedi promised that he would ensure that universities and higher education would be improved and modernised.

Having been sworn in on 20 January, he instructed the ministry of higher and university education to undertake reforms.

The ministry (which did not respond to University World News questions) subsequently announced additional spending on the reform and associated improvements in services, such as funding more higher education accommodation, recruitment of staff, while building more lecture theatres, classrooms and resource centres.

Safi, the new minister, announced an agreement between the government and unions in the education sector in September on future salary funding to avoid industrial discontent.

Implementation support

A key reform has been that the ministry has organised train-the-trainer training and information sessions for higher education lecturers on the LMD system, with additional work undertaken during academic holidays.

Lecturers from all universities and institutions of higher learning were then invited to training in regional centres run by coordinators, such as that run by Nzigire, whose institution is training the DRC’s eastern region on creating the LMD system.

Nzigire, also director of the university’s self-financing units and projects department, told University World News: “The LMD programme started in the 2020-21 academic year. It is the programme in all universities, except that, given the several challenges in terms of resources, material, human and financial resources, some universities are not yet fully there. For the moment, I would say the government has not yet put in place a budget to support the LMD system.”

She said the training of lecturers is sponsored and funded by their own universities, noting that, by August, her team of trainers had trained 750 lecturers in eastern DRC. She added: “As the education system has switched to this new format, all universities, whether public or private, have only one choice, to adhere to this system ...”

She argued that LMD “is practicable, although with several challenges”, such as a dearth of teaching materials supporting LMD-compliant revised curricula. Introducing new programmes and credit systems have piled on workloads for students and faculty.

She added: “Universities face difficulties in adapting infrastructure and resources to meet LMD requirements,” such as more lecturer rooms, bigger libraries with necessary textbooks, well-equipped laboratories and enough furniture.

“By the way, the new system requires more classrooms, laboratories and more teachers,” said Nzigire.

She added: “There is also resistance to change. Some faculty members and students have been slow to adapt to the new system, leading to implementation challenges. The tuition fees have also increased. Before the reforms, it was, on average, US$1,000 annually in most universities, but now it has risen to US$1,800.”

Pedagogical autonomy

Should these problems be overcome, however, she stressed that LMD would boost students’ pedagogical autonomy.

She said: “It means that the student, himself, contributes a lot to his training. For example, the student must go into the environment to compare the knowledge learned in the lecture room with the reality of experience in the professional environment,” thus learning more than pure classroom-directed studies.

Professor Ben Mugisho, a spokesperson for the University of Light of Bujumbura (Université Lumière de Bujumbura), Goma campus, told University World News that his institution had already made progress: “Our university embraced the LMD system immediately after it was introduced. Both lecturers and students have no complaints about it.”

His university has established a resource centre helping students and lecturers understand the new LMD system, training lecturers, explaining its benefits, “equipping laboratories with more equipment and constructing new classrooms ...”

‘Consistency in academic quality’

According to Professor Philippe Banzi, a lecturer at the Catholic University La Sapientia of Goma (Université Catholique la Sapientia de Goma), who is also a trainer on the reforms, stressed the value of LMD standardisation in undergraduate and graduate programmes, “ensuring consistency in academic quality and structure”.

He told University World News: “The reform has led to a focus on quality assurance, enhancing the overall academic experience and graduate employability.”

Underlining that the system will foster more opportunities for DRC students to interact with overseas students, maybe through exchange programmes, and Congolese researchers to participate in international collaborative research, Pecos Kulihoshi Musikami, Coordinator at the Collective of Youth Solidarity Organisations in Congo-Kinshasa DRC (Collectif des organisations des jeunes solidaires du Congo-Kinshasa RDC) told University World News that the new system of LMD has brought back confidence in local universities.

Many parents with means had been sending their children to study in neighbouring countries’ universities, including in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania, he said.

“Most of the universities are now with many students because most parents have stopped taking their children to study abroad,” said Musikami.

Bwana Mapengo, a parent with a first-year student, Felix Mugisho, studying education at the University of Goma in North Kivu province, said: “I was told by my child that the fees had been raised because there is a new system of universities in the country. Anyway, if the changes are for the betterment of the education system, I wholeheartedly support them.”

Another parent, Pascal Mwanamboka, in neighbouring north-eastern DRC Ituri province said, however, that he had prevented his son from joining the local University of Bunia due to the LMD-fuelled increase in tuition fees.

Annet Gawule, a second-year student in accounting at the Goma Higher Institute of Commerce (Institut Supérieur de Commerce de Goma), said her higher education institution lacks facilities to implement the new system.

“The system seems to be good because it gives us much knowledge, but it seems some of our lecturers are not yet well trained on how to go on with it,” she told University World News.