Preparing students for undergraduate physics in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), located in central sub-Saharan Africa, is a challenging place for physics education. The poor quality of primary and secondary education along with chronic poverty and insecurity means that students are often ill-prepared for university physics. However, there is still a need for qualified STEM practitioners to solve the many technical challenges of a growing society. We present a bridge year intervention at the Christian Bilingual University of Congo aimed at preparing students for university physics with the hope of ultimately addressing this need in the DRC. Through updated admissions standards, course structure, and inquiry based foundational math and physics courses, we saw a qualitative improvement of student readiness for university physics. However, scalability and sustainability remain uncertain.