Author: Arsene Mbala

Strategic Scholarships Strengthen Bilateral Education The departure this month of seventy Congolese scholarship-holders for Moroccan universities is the most visible sign in years of an educational partnership that has quietly matured since Brazzaville and Rabat upgraded their cooperation agreements in the late 2010s. Announced in the capital on 5 September in the presence of Higher Education Minister Delphine Edith Emmanuel and Ambassador Ahmmed Agargi, the package covers tuition, accommodation and a modest living allowance, enabling recipients to enrol in engineering, medicine, climate science and information technology programmes across the kingdom (Ministry of Higher Education). For Morocco, the initiative aligns with…

Educational Bridge Strengthens South–South Cooperation An atmosphere of restrained celebration filled the halls of the Ministry of Higher Education in Brazzaville as Ambassador Ahmmed Agargi formally handed over travel documents and scholarship certificates to seventy Congolese students bound for Moroccan universities. The gesture, firmly anchored in the doctrine of South–South cooperation championed by both capitals, signals Rabat’s intention to position knowledge transfer at the heart of its African diplomacy while offering the Republic of Congo a timely boost to its human-capital ambitions, articulated by President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the National Development Plan. Speaking on behalf of King Mohamed VI,…

Strategic Setting: Youth Inclusion at the Heart of State Policy Few policy questions resonate more strongly across Central Africa than the quest for meaningful youth inclusion. In the Republic of Congo, where nearly two-thirds of the population is under thirty, the government has long recognised that sustainable stability hinges on the social and economic integration of its youngest citizens. Recent national development plans emphasise employability, civic education and conflict-prevention measures consonant with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 8 (AU Agenda 2063 Framework, 2022). It is within this strategic continuum that the National Agency…

Strategic English Training Gains Momentum in Brazzaville In the northern quarters of Brazzaville, the sound of English verb drills now mingles with the hum of city traffic. From late August to the end of September, the Foreign Languages Training Center (FLTC) in Djiri is hosting twenty-five recent secondary-school graduates for an intensive, tuition-free programme in the world’s lingua franca. The initiative is spearheaded by Parfait Iloki, Permanent Secretary in charge of Communication and New Information Technologies within the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). According to local wire service Agence Congolaise d’Information (ACI) and corroborating reports from community media in the capital,…

A Global Commemoration Anchored in Brazzaville The Republic of Congo will join the international community on 8 September in observing International Literacy Day, an annual initiative instituted by UNESCO in 1966 to remind governments, practitioners and citizens of the transformative power of reading and writing. The 2023 theme, “Promoting Literacy in the Digital Age,” resonates strongly in Brazzaville, where policymakers view literacy not merely as a pedagogical objective but as a strategic component of national development and stability. By aligning itself with the global agenda, the Congolese government underscores its long-standing commitment to crafting an educated, just, peaceful and sustainable…

Record-breaking 100 % Pass Rate in Forestry Examination The 27 August proclamation of the June 2025 technical and professional examination results in Brazzaville introduced an unprecedented statistic into Congo-Brazzaville’s education annals: every one of the fifty-nine candidates who sat for the Brevet de technicien forestier (Btf) earned the coveted certificate. The absolute pass rate crowns a cohort that, according to the general president of the juries, Rufin Mviri, “embodied both scholarly discipline and vocational commitment”. The achievement resonates beyond academic circles, given the strategic relevance of forestry expertise for a country whose economy and environmental stewardship are closely intertwined with…

Context of the Fee Adjustment Few institutions in Central Africa embody post-independence nation-building as vividly as Université Marien Ngouabi, created in 1971 and named after the late head of state. Housing more than 45 000 learners across eleven faculties, the university revealed in August a consolidation of previously fragmented charges into a single registration line: 21 000 CFA francs at bachelor level, 50 000 at master level and 100 000 at doctoral level. According to the rectorate, those figures merely aggregate laboratory contributions, health-insurance premiums, identity-card printing and diploma certification that were already borne by students in separate transactions (Les…

Recurrent Incidents Call for Comprehensive Safeguards When administrators of the Pierre Lountala Lower-Secondary School in Dolisie arrived on 21 August, they found every office door splintered and filing cabinets overturned. Similar intrusions had disrupted the CEG Hammar and the CEG de l’Unité only days earlier. The fact that nothing of financial value was removed perplexed investigators, but the symbolism was unmistakable: educational facilities in Congo-Brazzaville’s third-largest city remain vulnerable to organised or opportunistic crime. According to data compiled by the Niari Departmental Directorate of National Police, at least eleven educational premises in the region have reported night-time incursions since January,…

A Congolese Forum for Strategic Eloquence The auditorium of the Autonomous Port of Pointe-Noire, better known for container traffic than for rhetorical flourishes, briefly transformed into a diplomatic salon when more than 1,500 spectators convened for the fourth edition of the “BE Genius” eloquence contest. The gathering brought together primary-school pupils, university students and professionals, illustrating the Republic of Congo’s commitment to inter-generational dialogue at a moment when regional institutions, from the Economic Community of Central African States to UNESCO’s Office in Yaoundé, increasingly frame youth participation as a pillar of peacebuilding. Parental Responsibility at the Core of Social Stability…

Digital Education Momentum in Brazzaville When the Secretary-General of the Conference of Ministers of Youth and Sport of the Francophonie, Louisette Thobi, stepped into the modest headquarters of EduLab Mobile on the outskirts of Brazzaville, she found a small team methodically assembling sensors, microscopes and low-energy servers into a van chassis. Her satisfaction, expressed after the visit, resonated with the Congolese government’s wider drive to weave digital inclusion into the fabric of national development. Since 2021, President Denis Sassou Nguesso has placed youth innovation at the centre of the National Development Plan, encouraging public–private alliances that widen access to science,…