Squeezed on to benches and on the floor, the Congolese students of Kipushi Primary School did not complain that they only had a few, battered textbooks to share -- just down the road, hundreds of less fortunate children were working in open-pit mines.
Enrolment at the school -- named after the town of 174,000 people, which is dominated by its copper, zinc and cobalt mines -- has risen by 75 percent to 1,400 students since the Democratic Republic of Congo introduced free primary education in 2019.
