DRC Education & Bolingo Village
One of our younger kiddos practicing fine motor skills!
Education is key. It can empower any child to reach their dreams. To stretch beyond expectations and achieve more – build something better for themselves. It gives confidence. Instills grit and determination.
In the US, education is a hot topic. How do we create a system that will work? How do we evaluate teachers? How do we measure student achievement? Everyone has opinions. However, there is one thing that isn’t open to argument - every child must attend school. It isn’t optional.
DRC education and the system built to support it is different. In the last two years, DRC’s new president moved to make primary school attendance free. It was a huge first step, but there is so much work left to be done.
Three significant ways that education is thought of differently in DRC are natural ability, grade retention, and capacity.
Natural ability. DRC, culturally, focuses on educational achievement for those who would be considered “gifted” and placed in advanced lessons in the US. These are the children who are encouraged to succeed in school. Who are helped with their homework and pushed to attend the optional secondary school. For other students, there is much less of a focus on education. They attend school when they can, do their homework when it suits them, and generally stop after primary school. The expectation for the orphaned population is even less.
Grade retention. In the US, elementary school grade retention (being held back to repeat a grade) averages around 3%. In DRC, that number is 12%. For our kids, last year was most of their first time attending school. They also had many interruptions due to Covid school closures. Our percentage was higher than average. We have made it a goal to get this down, first meeting the national average and then surpassing it.
Capacity. Schools in DRC can simply turn away children due to capacity issues, even when there is no alternative. During the most recent school closure due to covid, Bolingo Village had 5 school-aged children become a part of our families. Due to capacity issues and the kids joining Bolingo in the middle of the year, they were denied entry to the local school.
Kids gathering before school starts at the school near Bolingo Village.
We are hopeful that we may be able to assist the school in increasing its capacity. However, our country director, Ety, was already conducting a search for a tutor. This person will have several responsibilities:
We want to ensure that every child, regardless of natural ability, is given every ability and expectation of success. Our tutor will continuously communicate with the kids’ teachers to learn what they are struggling with and work with them to improve.
School readiness. Our tutor will work with children under the age of 6 to ensure that they are developing the skills they need to succeed in school. Our tutor will work with our Foster moms and Helpers to ensure that they are getting the lessons they need to build their readiness.
Due to our most recent children being denied entry to the school, our tutor will also be responsible for teaching these children until they can access the local school.
The promise of Bolingo is to help all our kiddos become the best versions of themselves and prepare them to succeed in life. Access to quality education has to be a part of that. It is a commitment that we’ve made and will meet.