Education
SCHOOLS & EDUCATION CENTRES
Our networked information society offers opportunities for cross-border exchange and thus for everyone to participate in the globalised world. Every year, over 1,000 pupils receive training at the schools we have set up and graduate. They learn in pharmacy or laboratory assistance, nursing, banking and insurance, electromechanics, IT, telecommunications, environmental and resource protection or complete the natural sciences baccalaureate. Computer skills are taught as a basis for communication and independence.
Ecole Polyvalente Carolus Magnus (EPCM)
The Ecole Polyvalente Carolus Magnus (EPCM) was opened in 2006 in Kajaga, outside the city of Bujumbura and directly on Lake Tanganyika, and is a general education school with a primary school, upper school and technical and scientific baccalaureate. Students can choose between the PTA (pharmaceutical technical assistant), laboratory assistant, nursing, banking and insurance and science programmes in the upper school.
The EPCM is still the only school in Burundi to offer PTA training.
The school also has a very well-equipped laboratory, which is even used in co-operation with universities such as the Institut National de la Santé Publique (INSP), which would like to enable their students to carry out practical work.
Click here for the 360° virtual reality tour of the EPCM.
The EPCM preschool
The EPCM pre-school is located in Gatumba, between the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kajaga, where the EPCM primary school and secondary school are located. This is where we had moved the former pre-school in order to save the young children a long journey to school. However, it is still integrated into the EPCM management and administration. Following its opening at the start of the 2018-19 school year, the new, modern preschool was able to get up and running in 2019.
The programme is designed to prepare young children for the start of primary school, where lessons are taught in French throughout. On the other hand, parents will also feel relieved by their children attending there. In the largest settlement north-west of Bujumbura, most people live from trade between Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Or also from fishing, thanks to Gatumba’s direct location on Lake Tanganyika. While families in the area previously had to travel to the EPCM in Kajaga, a few kilometres away, to attend pre-school, the new facility is now within walking distance for many.
Click here for the 360° virtual reality tour of the preschool and primary school in Gatumba.
The EPCM primary school
The EPCM primary school is located directly adjacent to the pre-school so that the children from Gatumba can continue their education at the same location. Gatumba is located on Lake Tanganyika, just a few kilometres from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2017, Burundikids e.V. and Fondation Stamm set up a preschool at the site. The new facility was so well received that demand exceeded capacity.
The first three classrooms of the new primary school opened for the 2021-2022 school year. At the end of 2023, the buildings for grades 4-6 were built, so that the entire offer includes grades 1-6.
The primary school in Gatumba was built in collaboration with the Wolfgang R. Fikentscher Children’s Aid Foundation.
Click here for the 360° virtual reality tour of the preschool and primary school in Gatumba.
Die Ecole Technique Omnis (ETO)
The Ecole Technique Omnis (ETO) is located in Gitega, which has been the capital of Burundi again since January 2019 by parliamentary decision. For young people who have successfully completed primary school, three different vocational training programmes are taught here (comparable to German vocational schools): Electromechanics, Telecommunications and Computer Science/Maintenance.
In addition to theoretical instruction, the ETO emphasises a great deal of practice and the application of knowledge. Several work placements in companies are planned during the three-year training programme. However, the ETO also offers the opportunity to put what they have learnt in theory into practice in the school’s own workshops.
In 2019, the school recorded a veritable run on the training programmes, including from some distant parts of the country, so that initial considerations were made for an extension, possibly with a boarding school.
Ecole Technique de l‘Education Environnementale (ETEE)
The Ecole Technique de l’Education Environnementale (ETEE) is another privately run and publicly accessible school with boarding facilities in the municipality of Ruhororo, Ngozi province in northern Burundi. It is also run by the Stamm Foundation.
The four-year course provides for specialisation in resource conservation, in harmony with agriculture, livestock farming and in connection with general rural development. The programme concludes with the A2 diploma, which is comparable to the vocational baccalaureate in Germany. There are 50 students in the first generation, the majority of whom are girls.
A team of teachers is responsible for the teaching, whose official curriculum includes both subject-specific courses and general courses such as languages and natural sciences. The ETEE is also attended by young people from social institutions, e.g. street children’s homes.
Duhinduke day care centre
The Duhinduke day care centre (meaning: ‘We take our lives into our own hands’) is located in Bujumbura’s northern, very poor Buterere district. Where particularly poor families live and pre-school facilities are rare, the centre has enjoyed great popularity for many years. The daycare centre is open five days a week. On all days, professional teachers look after the girls and boys, whose parents only pay a small, symbolic amount. The day care centre offers the children a varied programme. By learning before they start school, the children can benefit from a head start when they subsequently attend primary school. Learning the national language Kirundi and the official language French is particularly important. This is a challenge for many, as many families in Buterere only speak Kiswahili.
Workshop Centre de Perfectionnement en Electromécanique Industriel (CPEI)
The Centre de Perfectionnement en Electromécanique Industriel (CPEI) in Bujumbura offers participants the opportunity for advanced industrial mechanics training. The fully equipped workshop is geared towards advanced training for skilled workers with a previous qualification in electromechanics, electrics or mechanics. The centre has a total of twelve training places. In 2019, the centre was accredited by the Burundian Ministry of Education following an inspection.
A youth centre for Gitega
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the associated restrictions, the project had to be postponed several times: the Thilo Kehrer Centre, a youth centre in Burundi’s capital Gitega. Martina Wziontek, Chairwoman of Burundikids e.V., drew up the construction plans for the centre and presented them to the Kehrer family at the beginning of 2020. The centre was officially opened in summer 2022 – together with professional footballer Thilo Kehrer.
The youth centre is located in the immediate vicinity of the Ecole Technique Omnis (ETO) technical school and provides cultural, sporting and vocational activities for young people in Gitega. The concept of the Thilo Kehrer Centre is also based on suggestions, wishes and needs that emerged from a survey of young people at the ETO.
The Thilo Kehrer Foundation is financing the construction of the youth centre. The footballer has a German father and a mother from Burundi.
Foundation for the Promotion of African Women and Orphans (SFFW)
Mrs Sam-Duk Patzelt, a Berliner from South Korea, contacted us in 2021 with the idea of setting up a foundation. The “Foundation for the Promotion of African Women and Orphans” (SFFW) was to award scholarships in the university and higher education sector to talented young women from economically weaker families and young people from social institutions in Burundi in order to give them access to higher educational opportunities.
In January 2022, the first eleven lucky young people began their studies at one of several universities in Burundi.
