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Reshaping the reach of the state: the politics of teacher payment reform in the DR Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2020

Cyril Owen Brandt  and
Tom De Herdt
Cyril Owen Brandt*
Affiliation:
Institute of Development Policy (University of Antwerp), Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000Antwerp, Belgium
Tom De Herdt*
Affiliation:
Institute of Development Policy (University of Antwerp), Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000Antwerp, Belgium
*
Emails: [email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

We analyse the politics of the reform of teacher payment modalities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in light of the uneven territorial reach of the DRC state. The reform focused on extending this reach by paying all teachers via a bank account, replacing long-standing shared governance arrangements between state and faith-based organisations with a public-private partnership. By using qualitative and quantitative data, we map the political practices accompanying the implementation of the reform. While the reform itself was officially deemed a success, its intended effects were almost completely offset in rural areas. Moreover, governance of teacher payments was not rationalised but instead became even more complex and spatially differentiated. In sum, the reform has rendered governance processes more opaque and deepened the existing unevenness in the geography of statehood.

Keywords

Reformpolicypublic-private partnershipfaith-based organisationpublic servicesDemocratic Republic of Congoteacher paymentnegotiation
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 23 - 43
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

We would like to thank Stylianos Moshonas for helpful comments and support in the process of cleaning up the quantitative data, Justin Mann for support in cleaning up the quantitative data, Bobo B. Kabungu for providing specific data, Gabi Sonderegger for support in drawing maps and Kristof Titeca and participants and the ECAS 2017 conference in Basel for helpful comments, as well as anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper.

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