"This new building is part of the achievements of President Félix Tshisekedi's first term. Among the achievements of the first term, we have the flagship reform on the free primary public education regarding the induced effects, notably the overcrowding of students in classrooms. The answer to this issue is through the construction of new school infrastructures and the rehabilitation of school infrastructures that have become dilapidated," the Minister of EPST declared.
He added, "We have observed that in many provinces, and particularly for the city of Kinshasa, many reference schools are private or affiliated schools. To this date, before the inauguration of this one, there was no official reference school that could compete with the others. Yet, the monopoly on the matter of education and instruction first belongs to the State. It is in this context and on instruction from the President of the Republic that we have established an emergency plan for the rehabilitation of all our reference schools to make them competitive, in all our provinces, starting with Kinshasa."
For Minister Tony Mwaba, it is essential that public schools be competitive and that the free basic education should not exclude the quality of education. "So for Kinshasa, we have decided that in the 5 educational provinces, we should have at least one official school rehabilitated so as to make it competitive and that it remains a competitive school given its capacity to accommodate, in order to ensure not only a good learning and teaching process but also the quality of education. Free education should not obscure quality," he continued.
Furthermore, Minister Tony Mwaba Kazadi requested the school's administrator to manage it as a good family man and to maintain its standard. "We are going to hand this building over to the manager, whom we strongly recommend to keep it as a good family man and to maintain it with the operating costs that this school receives. I will ensure that it receives operational fees according to the rate granted to all reference schools," concluded Professor Tony Mwaba, Minister of EPST.
Gisèle Tshijuka