A Letter to Youngs Congolese Finishing High School
(Picture by Me in July 2025)
C’est la période de l’année où les du secondaire élèves sont entrain de terminer leurs études et de passer leur examens.
Je suis très nostalgique. Je me souviens d’avril 2010, trois mois avant le passage de l’examen d’État. Nous étions en retraite au centre Amani et les prêtres commençaient déjà à nous préparer pour les études universitaires.
Ayant fini le collège, nous avions eu la chance de penser et préparer notre avenir, mais malheureusement, la plupart de nos petits frères n’ont pas eu cette chance.
La plupart d’entre nous étaient curieux et enthousiastes à l’idée de l’université et de la nouvelle vie qui nous attendait. Cependant, certains étaient perdus et ne savaient pas quel chemin choisir.
Seize années plus tard, je suis ici pour écrire ce post et guider les jeunes Congolais qui vont bientôt quitter le secondaire.
(One honest disclaimer: I can barely write in French anymore. So this is in English. Bear with me.)
First, Congratulations!!!
You made it. Finishing high school in Congo, especially if you went to a serious school is no small thing. People will underestimate your education, but don’t let them. The foundation you built is solid. It’s generalist, it’s rigorous, and it can take you anywhere in the world.
This post is for you: the young person from Bukavu, from Goma, from the Kivus and honestly, from anywhere in Congo who just got their diploma and is wondering what comes next.
Who Am I?
My name is Murhabazi Buzina Bwa Mpumbwe Espoir. I grew up and went to school in Bukavu, in one of the most prestigious high schools in the country at the time College Alfajiri. I got my diploma d’etat in Math-Physics around August 2010. I still remember that mix of worries, excitement, and total confusion about what to do next.
Sixteen years later, I work as a Machine Learning Engineer at one of the largest banks in the UK, based in London. It not fancy as it may sound but It pay my bills and I can afford to live in London and send some money to my family in Africa. Some young people in my generation look up to me, they call me le grand frere de ses petits frere. This post is me trying to live up to that.
I’ve spent over a decade in software engineering, worked across the East African tech sector and the international community. I hired, trained, and mentored engineers from across Africa and the globe.
What We’re Going to Cover
- Do I really need to go to University
- The harsh truth about universities
- What fields are worth studying right now
- Where to study, options across the region and beyond
- How to get the most out of wherever you end up
Do I really need to go to University?
This is an interesting question, and I feel it is fair for me to share my thoughts on it before even diving deep into fields adn universities choices.
We are in 2026, an era of the information. Information is available anywhere, education is free if you have a computer and an internet connection and a willingness to learn.
There are a lot of tools out there that allow you to explore the self-taught route, and I will recommend you go and have a look at them. One of those resources for Computer Science is Teach Yourself Computer Science and the Open Source University.
However, going through those curriculums by yourself requires self-discipline and dedication.
Universities offer some advantages:
- They give you credentials that we can verify! The whole world is built around this, and we need a way to check if you really studied.
- They provide a structured learning environment.
- They connect you with other people and networks. Whether we like it or not, a university will connect you with colleagues and like-minded people. I have met the best guys I know at university.
There are fields in high school in the Congo called “humanités complètes or techiques” such as Electricity, Mechanics, and the like. The goal of those fields is to prepare you for jobs as soon as you graduate from high school. I have seen guys who finished in Electricity and went directly to work at companies. By the time we finished university, they already had six years of experience. At that time, they could decide to go to university to get just the paper to prove that they have the credentials.
So, the bottom line is to get the best of both worlds: learn and keep on learning. Even if you decide to go to university, go there with a self-taught mindset, and you will be surprised by how much you can learn with that attitude.
Now, let’s move on to universities…
The Harsh Truth About Universities
The Internet
Let’s get this out of the way: most private universities are businesses. Their primary goal is not your education, it’s revenue. This is true of African, European and American universities.
For public universities, it depends on the country. Public universities often reflect their host nation’s leadership; if a country is struggling, its public universities will likely be as well. Many of the problems we have in Congo today are because our public universities were unable to produce good leaders, or the reverse: our leaders are not able to make our universities better.
Another harsh reality is that each country prioritises its local students for admission to their best universities over foreign students. If you want to study abroad, your best option would be a private university, but I have already mentioned the harsh reality regarding them: they are money-making machines, and their primary goal is not to provide education. In some countries, international students pay three times the money local students pays.
That doesn’t mean they’re useless. It means you have to be intentional. The students who thrive are not necessarily the ones who went to the best universities, they’re the ones who were curious, disciplined, and spent their time learning rather than scrolling on TikTok and Snapchat. The university shapes you, but it doesn’t define you.
What Should You Study?
Ministere de l'education national
When it comes to field, your options depends on what you studied in High School.
If You Finished in a STEM Track (Scientifique, Technique, Pédagogie)
You have excellent options. Here are the fields I’d highlight:
🔢 Mathematics & Statistics: If you’re strong in Maths, this is one of the best investments you can make. A solid Maths or Stats degree prepares you for Data Science, Machine Learning, and Quantitative Finance career. The world still need Engineer, Quants, those guys who can understand and build complex systems. If you doubt me, go and check how many opening Google, Anthropic, Bloomberg or OpenAI, currently have form Machine Learning Engineers, Software Engineer and Data Scientists.
Don’t rush to any degree program that is Labelled Machine Learning or Data Science, most degrees that are labelled that way on undergraduate level are scams. Aim for a good degree in Mathematic or Statistic but with a strong component in Computer Science and Programming.
⚡ Electrical Engineering : The world runs on energy. Congo sits on enormous energy potential. Electrical engineers people who understand power generation, distribution, and systems will always be needed. AI is driving massive demand for compute infrastructure, this field is growing, not shrinking. A plus if you study this field with a focus on renewable energy.
🔧 Electronics & Chip Design : The software side of AI is largely solved. The next frontier is hardware: chips, semiconductors, embedded systems. This is a field with enormous global demand and very few people who truly understand it.
🏗️ Civil Engineering & Architecture : Back then when we finished everyone wanted to become a Civil Engineer because off Michael Scofield in Prison Break. Sixteen years this still in demand, The world needs builders. Africa especially needs them. Infrastructure, housing, cities this is generational work, and it pays well.
🌍 Geology: We are Congolese. We live on top of one of the richest deposits of natural resources on the planet. A geology degree combined with ambition makes you nearly unemployable in the worst sense of the word: companies will fight over you. Plus if you combine Geology with GeoSpatial Science. Just have a look at job posting at Kobold Metal to check which profiles they are hiring for and check how much those jobs are paying. And plus our president have sold our country to American, they will come to take our minerals and will give us jobs. 🤣smile in D Trump Voice🤣, So be prepared for them.
🤖 Mechanical Engineering & Robotics Manufacturing, automation, robotics still a deeply human field that requires years of real expertise to master.
🩺 Medicine If you have the stomach for it (literally and figuratively) and are strong in biology, medicine is one of the last fields that AI will automate. It’s 8+ years of hard study, but it is genuinely rewarding . If you are interested in this field and don’t want to spend 8 years at university, train to Sante Public or Public health, or go to Nursing school. Nursing is a niche people are sleeping on. A good degree in Nursing combined with English will open you door in the world. The world population is dying and we need people to take care of them.
🌱 Agronomy & Environmental Science We still need to eat. We have one of the biggest forest in the world we need to take care of it. Agriculture, food systems, and environmental science have strong long-term prospects, especially in a continent with Congo’s land and biodiversity.
📊 Economics & Finance Don’t study economics to work at a bank. Study it to understand financial markets, economic systems, and quantitative finance. I mean real finance and econometric with stats and heavy mathematics. Banks are automating rapidly, but the people who truly understand how money and markets work who can read a Bloomberg terminal and model risk will always be in demand.
A note on software engineering: Many of you have played with ChatGPT and want to become developers or AI Engineers. I understand. But the demand for general software developers has dropped significantly, we’ve automated a large part of that work. I won’t recommend it as a standalone career path. What I will recommend is any field that uses computing as a tool rather than making it the product itself.
Where Should You Study?
Here’s my honest assessment of your options, region by region. This part will be split in two part: The first one I will speak about option in Congo and in East Africa. In my second post I will write about opportunities in the rest of the African continent and opportunities outside Africa.
source: https://www.alueducation.com/
🇨🇩 Congo
It home, I know most of you want to go and study abroad. However, if your parent cannot afford that or even if they can afford that, there is a lot of value studying in Congo, despite what everyone will tell us about our universities. Let me talk about your options.
The order of universities here is not based on their ranking it just random based on how their name come in my thoughts.
UCB (Université Catholique de Bukavu) This is my first recommendation for anyone finishing in Bukavu. UCB is genuinely strong particularly in Agronomy, Medicine, Economics, and Architecture. It also has a decent Computer Science programme. People will tell you to go abroad, but UCB is better than many universities across the region. Don’t sleep on it. Another plus, UCB have many partnership with universities in Europe such as Belgium and France. If you are smart you can leverage those opportunities.
Université Officielle de Bukavu (UOB) is a good shout for their Geology, Economie, and Sante Public Program.
Université Libre des Pays de Grand Lacs: ULPGL(Goma), this is were I went, it is a good university in the region it has a good degree in Engineering (Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Civil Engineering) and Economie.
It is affordable, but honestly, tribalism is killing this university. This is valid for most of the Protestant universities in the country. Pastors have privileges and favor their brothers in recruitment instead of recruiting competent people. (My friend who went there and taught there—please come and fight me… I am ready..💪🏿 LOL)”
Good shout to ISIG , la Sapientia in Goma and UCGT in Butenmbo
Universite de Lubumbashi, along with UNIKIN, are the oldest public universities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is known for its Geology and Electrical Engineering departments, and has produced some of the best Mining Engineers in the country.
ESI SALAMA is still a decent university in Lubumbashi; I have interacted with talented software engineers who were trained there.
Mapon University in Kindu I haven’t really interacted with student from this university but from what I can read online it seems to be a decent university with amazing programs.
Kinshasa / UNIKIN Unless you want to go into politics or you have the resilience to navigate serious institutional dysfunction, I’d be cautious. That said, UNIKIN’s Polytechnic department and Mathematics and Computer Science has produced some of the country’s finest engineers. If you have the grit, it can work.
The architecture and urban planning schools there are also worth mentioning. ISAU and IBTP are good shouts.
Universite Protestante du Congo is also a Good shout if you want to study Economic in the capital.
That being said, but the truth is that the universities in the Congo require an upgrade. We need to:
- Standardize degrees in English to improve international recognition.
- Our curriculum must evolve to place equal emphasis on leadership development and soft skills alongside technical knowledge.
- Most importantly, we must commit to zero tolerance for corruption, creating a transparent environment that serves the public good.
I understand a lot of work is being done in this area but there is still more to do.
Pro tip for those studying in Congo: Our French curriculum is robust; I am a direct product of it. However, just make sure you stay sharp and take the initiative to learn English while on top of your studies. Aim to read, write, and speak English fluently by the time your degree is complete. Ideally, target an IELTS or TOEFL score of 6.5 or higher after graduation.
🇷🇼 Rwanda
ALU (African Leadership University) Kigali My top regional recommendation outside Congo. ALU has a distinctive education model built around real-world application, leadership, and study-abroad opportunities. I know graduates who did internships at Google and Bloomberg in London. They offer computer science, entrepreneurship, and economics degrees. Fees are around $3,000/year but scholarships can bring that down to $1,500. and it prepare you for a master degree in CMU. Forget about the politics and the Congo-Rwanda conflict and go and have your degree there. Alternatively they have a campus in Maurice Island please do consider that as well.
AUCA (Adventist University of Central Africa) A solid option, particularly for computer science. Good value.
Kepler & Akilah : decent institutions, though no longer operating in their original form. Worth researching current status.
ULK: Avoid. It is, in my honest assessment, primarily a money-making machine. Please I repeat again avoid especially the Gisenyi campus.. Lool… I don’t have anything about my friends who went to this university but honestly it is proper scam.. Again come and fight me… 🥊
🇰🇪 Kenya
Strathmore University : Nairobi A degree from Strathmore opens real doors. It’s respected across East Africa and beyond. Fees are around $4,000/year, and Nairobi is not cheap so factor that in. But the quality and the network are worth it.
Public universities — JKUAT, Dedan Kimathi University, and University of Nairobi all have solid engineering and science programmes at lower cost.
Private universities — Most are businesses in the truest sense. Research carefully before committing.
But kenya is the best country I will recommend, if you can afford to live there.
🇺🇬 Uganda
Makerere University Historically one of the best universities in Africa. Very hard to get into as a foreigner, but not impossible.
Kampala International University, University of East Africa, and ISBAT, all decent options worth considering. Good value for money but also be aware for business universities.
🇧🇮 Burundi
I’ll be direct: I’m not sure why someone leaving Congo would choose Burundi for university. If someone has a specific reason, I’m open to hearing it. Burundian should be the one coming to study in Congo.
Anyway, I have meet some decent guys who went to Ngozi university in Burundi.
🇹🇿 Tanzania
I haven’t explore Tanzanian universities but I have friend who are from there and there are some good university over there.
So before choosing a university, please take into consideration your familly situation, can you afford to live there? Pick university that can open you opporutnitiies that can teach you not only hards skills but also soft skills. Pick a city carefully, because it there where you will go and network. A big plus if a university offer study abroad opportunities and have partenrship with international universities.
One Last Thing
The most successful people I’ve hired and mentored across my career were not always the ones with the most prestigious degrees. They were the ones who were genuinely curious, who read outside their syllabus, who built things, asked hard questions, and didn’t wait to be taught.
Wherever you study: UCB, ALU, Strathmore, or anywhere else, your ceiling is mostly determined by you.
Congo has given you more than you realise. Now go build something with it.
Espoir, Garçon BK perdu à Londres.
[To be continued: scholarships, how to apply abroad, and how we improve Congolese education from the inside]
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