Luanda - Angola plans to increase its gross rate of schooling by 50 percent by 2063, the Minister of Higher Education, Technology, Science and Innovation, Maria do Rosário Bragança said Wednesday in Maputo, Mozambique.
According to the Cabinet minister, who was speaking at the international conference alluding to the celebrations of 60 years of higher education in Mozambique and Angola, the aim is to achieve the objectives set by the African Union.
Currently, the gross rate of schooling in Angola is approximately 10%, which makes the journey long and quite arduous.
In the last 20 years (1999- 2019), the student population in higher education in Angola has risen from 7,845 to 308,209.
Maria do Rosário Bragança explained that in the last five years, the Angolan Executive has designed and implemented a wide range of actions in the Higher Education Subsystem, among them, the implementation of electoral processes to establish the singular bodies, the reorganisation of the network of public higher education institutions, at a national level, particularly, at the level of the provincial capitals, with the creation of three new universities, by a process of fusion of institutions (institutes and autonomous higher schools and faculties).
He highlighted the creation of the career statute for higher education teaching staff at a national level, since the one in force dated from 1995 and only concerned the only university then existing, the Agostinho Neto University, the updating of the career of scientific researcher, which dated from 2001, as well as the organisation and structuring of the national system of science, technology and innovation, with the inclusion of the private sector and the establishment, at a national level, of clear rules for access to higher education.
He also referred to the establishment of the quality assurance framework for HEIs, with the approval of normative instruments competing with the assessment and accreditation of HEIs, courses and programmes and for the assessment of teaching performance, and the creation of the Foundation for scientific and technological development, similar to the National Research Fund of Mozambique.
The relationship between Angola and Mozambique, the minister said, was based on common historical facts and has been consolidated through bilateral cooperation relations between the two States, which are even stronger in the field of science, technology and higher education, with the cooperation agreement that will be signed soon during this international conference.
With the implementation of the Action Plan resulting from the agreement, the minister hopes for even more efficient collaboration between the two academic and scientific communities, which will contribute to the progress of higher education, science and innovation in the two countries and, consequently, to improving the quality of life of Angolans and Mozambicans.
The joint commemoration, by Angola and Mozambique, of 60 years of higher education, constitutes an indelible milestone of unquestionable relevance in the relationship between the two countries.
At the three-day conference, chaired by the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, the general axes or thematic areas of teaching and learning in higher education, governance, administration and management of higher education, as well as strategic and transversal issues in education, will be presented.
