Maker Mwangu, Minister of Education of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education, and Dung-Kim Pham, Senior Operations Officer at the World Bank, lay the first stone of a new school in Gemena, Equateur province.

The DRC received a $100 million grant from the Global Partnership for Education, which will help the country rebuild and rehabilitate 153 schools in two of the country’s most deprived provinces: Equateur and Kasaï West. This will allow 75,000 children per year to go to school.  In addition to school construction,  the funding will also improve student learning through better textbooks and strengthened teacher training. There are still 3.5 million children of primary school age who do not go to school in the DRC.