Democratic Republic of the Congo Language of Instruction Country Profile
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION POLICY
In 2009, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued a policy for the use of
national languages (Stratégie nationale d'utilisation des langues nationales), which indicated that one of
the four national languages (Lingala, Kiswahili, Chiluba, and Kikongo) should be used as the LOI in Grades
I through 4.The initial LOI used in schools should be the national language that is most predominant
in the surrounding geographic area. The policy also stated that, during Grades 1 to 4, the LOI should
be taught as a subject as well as French (Global Partnership for Education [GPE] Secretariat, 2020). In
Grades 3 and 4, French will gradually be introduced as the LOI, with French becoming the primary LOI
in Grade 5, while the national language continues to be taught as a subject (GPE Secretariat, 2020). All
teaching beyond Grade 5 utilizes French as the medium of instruction.
The national languages policy is currently being piloted across the country, and has not yet reached full
implementation (GPE Secretariat, 2020). Some teachers have reported issues with implementing the
policy due to a lack of teaching and learning materials in the national languages. In those cases, teachers
often revert to teaching in French (Chemonics International, Inc., 2020). Similarly, a language mapping
exercise conducted in 2018 found some mismatches between the national language used as the LOI,
and children's mother tongue (Chemonics International, Inc. & SIL LEAD, Inc., 2018). The study, covering
five provinces across the DRC, noted that children in urban areas were almost universally competent
in the national language used as the LOI. However, children in rural areas were often less familiar with
the national language. This was particularly true in the Sud Ubangi province, where Lingala is the national
language. In this case, 53% of Grade I students were unable to speak in Lingala, and 25% of Grade |
students were able to partially speak in Lingala (Chemonics International, Inc. & SIL LEAD, Inc., 2018).
Such mismatches between the LOI and languages that students are familiar with may also present
challenges for the implementation of the national languages policy.
CLASS TIME
In the DRC, education begins with two years of pre-primary and six years of primary education
(Grades 1 to 6), followed by two years of junior secondary education (Grades 7 and 8) and four years
of senior secondary education (Grades 9 to 12). Only six years of primary schooling is compulsory in
the DRC (Meysonnat & Torrano, 2020).
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO | LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION COUNTRY PROFILE
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