Elections at the Medical School

Two weeks ago, the Dean of the Medical School Faculty had his office firebombed. Nobody was injured. There was relatively minimal property damage, but it is a serious act of vandalism. The presumed perpetrators are a group of third-year medical students, who had not received the results of their examinations, which they need to be promoted. (Medical school here begins immediately after secondary school, and is a seven-year program.) This was their third attempt at the examination, and the Dean unilaterally decided that they should not be given a third chance at the exam. In and of itself, it may be a reasonable decision. But, incredibly, he decided this after the students already took the exam for a third time. And he refused to meet with them. His handling of the situation was equally unpopular with his colleagues. He was on the ballot for re-election to a second two-year term, but withdrew his candidacy the evening before the election. One of his supporters replaced him and lost the election, gaining only about one-third of the vote.

There is another dynamic at work here--ethnicity. The winning candidate is Kongo, the largest ethnic group in Kinshasa, and they have historical roots in this region, extending south in the Bas Congo province and northern Angola. The losing candidate and the outgoing dean are both Luba, a group based in the Kasai region. The Luba is known to be among the most highly educated groups, and are well represented in universities throughout the country. (The Kasai has a lot of missionaries and religious schools, including some set up by William Sheppard’s American Presbyterian Congo Mission.)

The anger of the students must also be understood in terms of the history of the university. From 1954 until UniKin was nationalized in 1971, its Belgian administrators would regularly fail Congolese students at a rate exceeding 90% (while graduating white colonials, and even other Africans, at much higher rates). It was the highest attrition rate in Africa. Even after independence, with the Congolese government providing 50% of the budget, the university remained an institution serving colonists and settlers. For example, in 1968, after 15 years, the school of engineering had graduated less than 20 Congolese engineers. Although there were some exceptions (like agronomy), most of the schools produced similarly untenable results. Failure was common retribution for political involvement. At a 1969 protest against the promotion policy, more than 60 UniKin students were killed. The issue of academic promotion here is extremely volatile, and for good reason. For now, I think people are encouraged by the results of the election.