Leopoldville 1961 – ENDA: A Tale of two Campuses

February 13, 1961, the Ecole Nationale de Droit et d’Administration (ENDA) opened classes in temporary space in the Palais de Justice in Kalina. The new school was intended to address a critical governance gap in the newly-independent country from which nearly the entire Belgian civil service abruptly left following the Army mutiny the previous July.

The Ministry of Justice - 1960 (Ph. Foreman, University of Wisconsin, Madison)

The Belgian colonial project did not favor development of trained Congolese administrators, although medical and agricultural auxiliaries received post-secondary training. Catholic missions, and to a lesser extent Protestants, trained priests and pastors. The medical auxiliaries school (FOMULAC) and agricultural school (CADULAC) were located at Kisantu, a Jesuit mission 120 kilometers south of Leopoldville. In 1947, a faculty member, Guy Malengreau, launched the “Ecole des Sciences Administratives” at Kisantu. Modeled on the Ecole coloniale in Antwerp, the program was intended to prepare Territorial Administrators for service in the colony. But there was no question in official circles that they would supervise Belgian agents and the Colonial Ministry withheld funds from FOMULAC and CADULAC in an attempt to discourage the Jesuits’ support for the initiative. Nonetheless, between 1951 when the first class graduated and its closure in 1956, 34 students successfully completed the program. In the meantime, the three institutions, now comprising the Centre Universitaire Congolais, was incorporated into the new Lovanium University established in Leopoldville at Kimwenza in Kinshasa, which opened its doors in 1954.

Kisantu FOMULAC building 2016 (Ph. author)

ENDA was created by Presidential Ordinance signed by President Kasavubu December 28, 1960. A delegation from the Ford Foundation visited Leopoldville in September and met with the Mobutu’s College des Commissaires Generaux whose members, in particular Marcel Lihau (Justice) and Andre Mabika Kalanda (Civil Service), impressed on the Ford team the pressing need for qualified administrators. In March 1961, the Ford Foundation announced a grant of $228,000 to cover faculty salaries for the first year. Ford named James T. Harris as Secretary General. Twenty-nine year old Etienne Tshisekedi, was named Director General (later Rector) by President Kasavubu. Tshisekedi would shortly become the first Congolese to graduate with a degree in Law from Lovanium University. Tshisekedi had already served as Deputy Commissaire for Justice in the College des Commissaires.  The United Nations also provided faculty through UNESCO.

The Congolese government made available a 10-hectare property located on Ave. Josephine Charlotte (Ave. de la Liberation, aka 24 Novembre) for the new school and the US government provided the services of Litchfield, Whiting and Bowne Associates to design the campus. Due to the high price tag, the project was put on hold and plans shifted to building a temporary campus using pre-fabricated components.  Accordingly, ENDA broke ground in December 1962 for the temporary campus on the Matadi road in Quartier Ozone of Ngaliema Commune. Prime Minister Adoula, Ministers Delvaux (Public Works) and Kabangi (Civil Service) presided. Construction of the 18 prefabricated buildings by Auxeltra-Beton and Solidus (the latter providing the reinforced concrete components) was expected to be completed by the following July, in time for the new school term in September. However, construction was not completed until the following year. Students and faculty, who were now occupying temporary quarters in the Athenee de Kalina, finally moved into the campus in December 1964.

UN Under Secretary General Ralph Bunche (R) visits ENDA in 1963. 
Director General Etienne Tshisekedi (L) (Ph. United Nations)

At the end 1963, USAID provided $1.2 million for construction of the permanent campus on the Ave. Josephine Charlotte property, expected to be completed by the end of 1965. Following Mobutu’s second coup in November 1965, Tshisekedi was named Minister of Justice in the new Government and Mabika Kalanda succeeded him as Secretary General of the school. Construction on the new campus did not begin until 1967, with contracts awarded to two Belgian firms, Safricas and the Compagnie Congolaise de Constructions. An Ordonnance Loi in August 1967, renamed the school Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

The main ENDA campus nearing completion (Ph. Safricas)

June 4, 1969, the students at Lovanium University organized a peaceful demonstration to protest living conditions on campus, while at the same time, register complaints about lingering neo-colonial aspects of higher education in the country and the increasingly dictatorial tendencies of the Mobutu regime. A sore point in this regard was the creation of the Mouvement Populaire de la Revolution (MPR) in 1967 as the sole political party. The youth wing of the MPR, the JMPR, replaced the very active university student organizations.

Depiction of the 1969 Lovanium protest (Ph. Leiden Arts Society)

Students from ENDA and other higher education institutions in the city joined the Lovanium protestors. At the Binza campus, groups of students barricaded the facility and organized cells to inhibit their fellows from resuming classes. August 1, the government consolidated all institutions of higher education under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, including ENA, which had been funded under the Ministry of Justice.

Students arraigned in court after the protest (Ph. X.com)

The permanent campus on Ave du 24 Novembre opened in January 1970. The President of the European Commission attended an inauguration of the complex, of which several buildings were built with European Development funds. In February, U.S. Secretary of State Rogers visited the campus, acknowledging US funding for other buildings. The same month, a French Senatorial delegation delivered a set of books for the library.

The ENDA campus on completion (Ph. Safricas)

June 4, 1971, Lovanium students took to the streets to commemorate the victims of the 1969 demonstration. When General Bosango went to Lovanium campus to dialogue with the students, his vehicle was sacked. That evening, President Mobutu ordered the closure of the University and the students enrolled in the army.

Female students after enrollment in the army (Ph. actualite.cd)

In the wake of the student protests a Reform Commission comprising key cabinet ministers and members of the MPR’s Political Bureau was created to look at higher education. Following a meeting with national professors at the MPR headquarters at Nsele at the end of July, a new law on August 6, consolidated Lovanium, the Official University in Lubumbashi and the Protestant Université Libre du Congo at Kisangani into a single Université Nationale. The Instituts Superieur Pedagogique and other technical schools were attached to their respective regional campuses. ENA, however, was terminated and its students transferred to the Faculty of Social Science, Politics and Administration at the Lubumbashi campus. 

 The recently completed ENA campus was turned over to the Institut Superiéur de Commerce, while the Ngaliema campus became the Centre Superiéur Militaire (CSM), previously established by President Mobutu at Camp Kokolo in October 1969. In 1972, the Institut Militaire de Langue Anglaise, established in 1964 to enable Congolese officers to attend US or UK military training, was transferred to CSM.

The Centre Superieur Militaire - 2021 (X.com)

With the demise of the Mobutu regime in 1997, ENDA supporters began to advocate for the reinstatement of the administrative training school. In 2001, the government created the Ecole Nationale d’Administration Publique (ENAP). Others called for the return of the CSM campus to the school. However, the school moved into the Fonction Publique building in Gombe and in 2007 its charter was reformulated in line with the 2006 Constitution and renamed ENA.

ENA premises in the Fonction Publique building - 2015 (Ph. Radio Okapi)

ENA's more recent rebranding - 2024 (Ph. ena.cd)

In 2019, the Congolese Government approached the French Government for assistance in creating a war college (Ecole de Guerre) to be located at the CSM. President Tshisekedi inaugurated the new program January 5, 2021 and the first class of officers began their training.

Ecole de Geurre opening day - 2021 (Ph. egk.org)

Ecole de Guerre -2025 (Ph. facebook)

The Institut Supérieur de Commerce was raised to the status of Haute Ecole de Commerce (HEC) in November 2023. Begun in 1962 under the tutelage of Father Gaston Govart at Institut St. Raphael in Limete with 25 students, by 2023 HEC/Kin had nearly 30,000 students enrolled.

ISC Campus - 2018 (Ph. author)

The main entrance to the school on Ave. Liberation (Ph. aigle.com)

Some views of the campus today.

Sources: 

• Ecole Nationale d’Administration (https://ena.cd/qui-sommes-nous/#histoire) 
• Ford Foundation, 1966. Two African Patterns. 
• Kimpianga Mahania, 1981. Eglise et education: histoire de l'enseignement protestant au Zaire, 1878-1978, Centre de Vulgarisation Agricole. 
• Rimlinger, Gaston V. 1974. Education and Modernization in Zaire A Case Study, Rice University.