In this wide-ranging interview, Associate Professor Elisée Byelongo Isheloke, Rector/Vice Chancellor of Université Espoir du Congo (UEC), narrates his experiences of managing an educational institution from scratch, its embryo stage in many ways and with zero-capital, little support and a myriad of challenges. Despite the existing difficulties and challenges, the UEC is steadily becoming a regional powerhouse of knowledge, research and development. The UEC administration will also appreciate any form of assistance and support from external sources. Here are the interview excerpts:
What are the peculiarities of managing an educational institution of higher learning, Hope University of Congo which is located in a small town of Baraka, in central Africa?
Byelongo Elisee Isheloke: First of all, I would like to greet you and your viewers/readers on this day and thank you for having me on this platform. Now, to answer your question, there are a number of challenges in managing any University, let alone a young one like the “Université Espoir du Congo” (UEC) also known as the “Hope University of Congo” with very limited infrastructure and a myriad of challenges.
To name but a few, the peculiarities stem from a variety of factors such as the lack of operational funding, inappropriate infrastructure and the (endemic) insufficient registered students. Most people in the small town of Baraka still send their children to bigger cities for their education. Although I do not entirely condemn this act, I would like to urge the community members to support this tailor-made community University in its mission to address some of the challenges of the very community as so far as education is concerned.
The UEC is the only University of Fizi which is entirely based in that territory – with only one branch in Kamituga (Fizi is a territory of an area of 41 745 km2 which is bigger than that of the neighbouring country of Burundi or Ruanda). Although there are a few other Higher Learning Institutions, the UEC had been conceived to cater for the academic needs of Fizi-Itombwe with its five faculties, namely Economics, Law, Social, Political and Administrative Sciences (SSPA in French acronym) or six if one dares to add the Faculty of Languages, Interlinguistics and Esperanto which is still on its embryo stage in many ways.
In cities like Bukavu and Lubumbashi, Universities started small and developed into greatness and maturity over the years. I understand that most of those used resources from the state to develop but there are instances in the Great Lakes region where community Universities outperformed public ones in many regards. In my view, the UEC is not following a strange path per se, what is strange though, is the attitude towards it taken by not only “the elites” who live in or have roots within but even by the people who were supposed to hold it dearly. It is time this attitude changes in favour of one which is going to mobilize resources, provide capabilities and get more involvement with research and development; one which is going to allocate funds to build, manage and strengthen this University, the “UEC”.
For now, what would you count as the marked achievements during the past few years, despite the fact that the university has a short history?
BEI: The university had its years of glory when a lot of funding were allocated to its administration by the Free Methodist Church and when the Faculty of Theology had some bursaries for registered students supported from the United States of America (USA). At that time, many professors came from abroad and the region to lecture and do a number of initiatives with the aim of giving the population of this territory a better chance to education. It will be remembered that Fizi is a war-torn territory owing to more than two decades of war, conflicts in the eastern DRC where the UEC is based, and an aftermath characterized by relative security or the lack thereof.
The population of Fizi deserves better and needs access to better education in their own territory and this should allow interactions to take place between the people of Fizi-Itombwe and other indwellers who have come to Fizi for socio-economic reasons and are now part and parcel of........