Education in Angola - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Education in Angola has four years of compulsory, free primary education which begins at age seven, and secondary education which begins at age eleven, lasting eight years. Basic adult literacy continues to be extremely low, but there are conflicting figures from government and other sources. It is difficult to assess not only literacy but also other educational needs. Statistics available in 2001 from UNICEF estimated adult literacy to be 56 percent for males and 29 percent for women. On the other hand, the university system has been developing considerably over the last decade.

History

African access to educational opportunities was highly limited for most of the colonial period

Colonial history of Angola

During the colonial history of Angola, the Portuguese sought to reassert their control over Angola after the Dutch occupation of the 1640s. Angola was a part of Portuguese West Africa from the annexation of several territories in the region as a colony in 1655 until its designation as an overseas...

, many rural Angolan populations of the vast countryside retained their native culture and language and were not even able to speak or understand Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

. In mainland Portugal, the homeland of the colonial authorities who ruled Angola from the 16th century until 1975, by the end of the 19th century the illiteracy rates were at over 80 percent and higher education was reserved for a small percentage of the population as well. 68.1 percent of mainland Portugal's population was still classified as illiterate by the 1930 census. Mainland Portugal's literacy rate by the 1940s and early 1950s was low for North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n and Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

an standards at the time. Only in the mid-1960s did the country make public education available for all children between the ages of six and twelve, and the overseas territories profited from this new educational developments and change in policy at Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

. In Angola, until the 1950s, facilities run by the government were few for such a large territory and restricted to the urban areas. Responsibility for educating Africans rested with Roman Catholic

Roman Catholicism in Angola

thumb|250px|Catholic Church in [[Huambo]]The Roman Catholic Church in Angola is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and Curia in Rome...

and Protestant

Protestantism in Angola

The existence of Protestants in Angola dates back to the late 19th century and in some places predates Portuguese colonial missionaries. Many of the nationalist independence leaders were raised as Protestants, including Jonas Savimbi...

missions. As a consequence, each of the missions established its own school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

system, however, the children were educated in Portuguese language and culture. This centuries long missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

educational endeavor in Portuguese Angola was subject to Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

coordination with respect to several pedagogical and organizational matters. Education beyond the primary

Primary education

A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...

level was available to very few black Africans before 1960, and the proportion of the age group that went on to secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

in the early 1970s was still quite low compared to the white Angolans (as well as comparing urban versus rural Angolans of all ethnicities). Nevertheless, primary school attendance was growing substantially. In general, the quality of teaching at the primary level was reasonable, despite the fact that sometimes instruction was carried on largely by Africans with very few qualifications. Most secondary school teachers were Portuguese. In 1962, the first university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

established in Angola was founded by the Portuguese authorities and was initially called Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola. This first Angolan university awarded a wide range of degrees from engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

to medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

. In 1968, it was renamed Universidade de Luanda (“University of Luanda”).

The conflict between the Portuguese military and the various nationalist guerrillas, the Portuguese Colonial War

Portuguese Colonial War

The Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...

(1961–1974), did not damage effectively this strong educational growth started in the late 1950s. However, the Angolan Civil War

Angolan Civil War

The Angolan Civil War was a major civil conflict in the Southern African state of Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with some interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict had taken...

(1975–2002) that ensued after independence

Angolan War of Independence

The Angolan War of Independence began as an uprising against forced cotton cultivation, and became a multi-faction struggle for control of Portugal's Overseas Province of Angola with three nationalist movements and a separatist movement...

left the education system in chaos and all the progress achieved in the last two decades was seriously damaged. With the independence and the eruption of the civil war, most Portuguese had left (including virtually all secondary school staff), many buildings had been damaged, and the availability of instructional materials was limited.

A report of the First Party Congress published in December 1977 gave education high priority. The government estimated the level of illiteracy following independence at between 85 percent and 90 percent and set the elimination of illiteracy as an immediate task. By 1985, after a major literacy campaign, the average rate of adult literacy was officially estimated at 59 percent; United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

government sources, however, estimated literacy at only 20 percent. At independence there were 25,000 primary school teacher

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

s, but less than 2,000 were even minimally qualified to teach primary school children. The shortage of qualified instructors was even more pronounced at the secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

level, where there were only 600 teachers. Furthermore, secondary schools existed only in towns. The First Party Congress responded to this problem by resolving to institute an eight-year compulsory

Compulsory education

Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all persons.-Antiquity to Medieval Era:Although Plato's The Republic is credited with having popularized the concept of compulsory education in Western intellectual thought, every parent in Judea since Moses's Covenant with...

system of free

Free education

Free education refers to education that is funded through taxation, or charitable organizations rather than tuition fees. Although primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in many countries, for example, all education is mostly free including...

, basic education for children between ages seven and fifteen.

School enrollment, which rose very slowly considering Angola's youthful population, reflected the dire effects of the insurgency. In 1977 the government reported that more than 1 million primary school students were enrolled, as were about 105,000 secondary school students, roughly double the numbers enrolled in 1973. What proportions of the relevant age groups these students constituted was not known, but in the case of the primary school students it may have been almost two-thirds, and in that of secondary school students, perhaps a tenth to an eighth. Official government statistics released in 1984 showed that primary school enrollment had declined to 870,410, while secondary school enrollment (including vocational school and teacher training students) had increased to 151,759. This made for combined primary and secondary school enrollment consisting of 49 percent of the school-age population. By 1986 the primary school enrollment had increased to 1,304,145. After the independence of Angola from Portugal in 1975, the Portuguese-built University of Luanda was refounded as the "Universidade de Angola" (University of Angola) in 1979 as a successor of the higher education institutions created during the Portuguese

Portugal

colonial administration. This included other institutions like the faculty of agricultural sciences based in the central Angolan town of Huambo

Huambo

Huambo, formerly Nova Lisboa , is the capital of Huambo province in Angola. The city is located about 220 km E from Benguela and 600 km SE from Luanda. The city's last known population count was 225,268...

which was known before independence by its numerous educational facilities, especially the Portuguese-founded Agricultural Research Institute that currently belongs to the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the Agostinho Neto University.http://www.umc.org/site/c.gjJTJbMUIuE/b.1352353/k.C301/Africa_University_partners_with_Chevron_Angolan_university.htm. The University of Luanda, founded in 1962, became known by its current title in 1985 to honor the first president of Angola, Agostinho Neto

Agostinho Neto

António Agostinho Neto served as the first President of Angola , leading the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the war for independence and the civil war...

. In 1984, Luanda's Agostinho Neto University, the country's only university, had an enrollment of 4,493 students. This number had declined to 3,195 by 1986. A total of 72,330 people were enrolled in primary adult education programs in 1986.

The government began implementation of its education plan in close cooperation with its allies

Foreign relations of Angola

The foreign relations of Angola are based on Angola's strong support of U.S. foreign policy as the Angolan economy is dependent on U.S. foreign aid.From 1975 to 1989, Angola was aligned with the Eastern bloc, in particular the Soviet Union, Libya, and Cuba...

, particularly Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

and the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. Hundreds of Cuban and Soviet teachers traveled to Angola to teach, and about 5,000 Angolan students studied in Cuba or the Soviet Union. Despite the government's efforts, the UNITA

UNITA

The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the Angolan War for Independence and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war .The war was one...

insurgency prevented the construction of a new education system on the remains of that inherited from the Portuguese. Between 1977 and the mid-1980s, school enrollment declined, reflecting the dire effects of the insurgency. The demands of the war had drained funds that could otherwise have been applied to building schools, printing book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s, and purchasing equipment. Fighting also disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of school-age children.

A number of Angolan organizations become active during the 1980s in the quest for better educational facilities.In 1987 the JMPLA launched a special campaign to recruit 1,000 young people to teach in primary schools in Luanda Province. The groups targeted by the campaign included secondary school and higher education graduates, as well as some workers. The OMA not only sponsored programs to teach women to read and write but was also involved in programs to reduce infant mortality and promote family planning. Even the military formed a special group in 1980, the eighth contingent of the Comrade Dangereux Brigade, whose basic function was to teach primary school; 6,630 brigade members were reported to have taught 309,419 students by 1987.

Despite the government's efforts, the UNITA insurgency prevented the construction of a new education system on the remains of that inherited from the Portuguese. The demands of the war had drained funds that could otherwise have been applied to building schools, printing books, and purchasing equipment. In 1988, according to the United States Center for Defense Information, the Angolan government spent more per capita on the military (US$892) than on education (US$310). The war in the southern and central regions of the country also prevented the spread of the school system; the consequences of the fighting, including UNITA attacks on schools and teachers and the massive displacement of rural populations in those areas, disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of school-age children. Further damaging to Angola's future was the fact that many of those studying abroad had either failed to complete their courses of study or had not returned to Angola.

Since after independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Angolan students continued to be admitted every year at Portuguese high schools, polytechnical institutes and universities, through bilateral agreements between the Portuguese Government and the Angolan Government; most of them belong to the Angolan elites. However, many of those studying abroad, in European countries like Portugal

Portugal

and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, had either failed to complete their courses of study or had not returned to Angola.

Release of UNICEF's 1999 annual report on "The State of the World's Children" predicted that illiteracy rates would escalate in the following century because one out of four children in the poorest nations would not be in school. By 1998, Angola alone had more than 50% of children under age 12 who did not attend school.

Although by law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

, education in Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

is compulsory and free for 8 years, the government reports that a certain percent of students are not in school due to a lack of school buildings and teachers. Students are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books and supplies. In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 percent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 percent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural

Rural

Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

and urban area

Urban area

An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...

s.154 In 1995, 71.2 percent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War

Angolan Civil War

(1975–2002), nearly half of all schools were reportedly loot

Looting

Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...

ed and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding. The Ministry of Education hired 20,000 new teachers in 2005, and continued to implement teacher trainings. Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained, and overworked (sometimes teaching two or three shift

Shift work

Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of the 24 hours of the clock. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts....

s a day). Teachers also reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their students. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health also prevent children from regularly attending school. Although budgetary allocations for education were increased in 2004, the education system in Angola continues to be extremely under-funded.

Literacy

Literacy

Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...

is quite low, with 67.4% of the population over the age of 15 able to read and write in Portuguese. 82.9% of males and 54.2% of women are literate as of 2001.

In Angola in 1999-2000, the gross primary enrollment rate was approximately 74 percent and the net primary enrollment rate was
approximately 30 percent. In provinces hardest hit by the war, gross enrollment rates averaged less than 40 percent. In 2002, 26 percent of children who were enrolled in primary school reached grade 4. Rates of enrollment, retention, and completion in Angola tend to be lower among girls.

When the civil war ended in 2002, Angola's educational infrastructure was in disarray. Several programs started after the end of the civil war were expected to improve education in Angola. In 2004, the Government of Angola concluded its national child registration campaign, which has documented 3.8 million children under the age of 18 years since August 2002. UNICEF and the Government of Angola expanded their existing Back-to-School campaign by recruiting and training 29,000 new primary school teachers for the 2004 school year. As a result, student enrollment has increased by nearly 1 million, primarily in grades 1 through 4. The program is developing into an Education for All Program. In April 2004, the Ministry of Education held public consultations on the proposed National Plan of Action for Education for All.

Many areas of rapid resettlement, areas hardest hit by the Angolan Civil War

Angolan Civil War

(1975–2002), and remote rural areas, however, continue to lack basic social services, including education. This absence of services has led to an increased migration to municipal and provincial capitals, where basic services and schools are already operating beyond capacity. Although primary school construction has received significant support from donor

Donation

A donation is a gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods including clothing, toys, food, and vehicles...

s, many of these newly constructed schools lack qualified teachers, curricula

Curriculum

See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...

, staff, and much needed resources and support. Viable non-formal education, accelerated education, vocation

Vocation

A vocation , is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. Though now often used in non-religious contexts, the meanings of the term originated in Christianity.-Senses:...

al training, and other alternative educational opportunities are also scarce, and lack qualified teachers, staff, resources and support.

Years of conflict have left many students, including former child soldiers, severely traumatized and some physically disabled

Physical disability

A physical disability is any impairment which limits the physical function of one or more limbs or fine or gross motor ability. Other physical disabilities include impairments which limit other facets of daily living, such as respiratory disorders and epilepsy....

. Abuse experienced by many abducted and war-affected girls has left them especially vulnerable, and some with young children requiring care during school hours. During the conflict, many students missed years of schooling, resulting in classrooms populated by many overage students. For these young people, the services that are available to them are often inadequate to meet their special needs.

Some teacher training and community programs have included special training for adults working with former child soldiers, war-affected children, and children engaged in or at risk of engaging in the worst forms of child labor

Child labor

Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...

. Some social protection and educational programs, curricula, policies, and resources have also been revised and made more suitable for this population. However, there continues to be a need for more relevant and adequate teaching techniques; resources, curricula, and teaching tools; formal, vocational, and alternative educational programs; life skills training; social services; community support; educational and social polices and programs; and opportunities for young people to develop into productive and responsible citizens.

Current status of primary education

After the end of the Angolan Civil War

Angolan Civil War

in 2002, and with the oil price increases in the late 2000s, the Angolan Government was able to collect huge financial resources from taxes on oil and diamond extraction profits. This increase of the governmental budget plus the end of the armed conflict allowed a new opportunity to expand and improve Angola's educational system. Angola's Education Ministry requested the implementation of the "Cuban system" (a Cuba

Cuba

n teaching method) beginning in March 2009 in the provinces of Luanda, Benguela, Huambo and Bié, to be afterwards extended to other areas of the nation. The method will be first implemented on February in Luanda, as an experimental project, for which a group of 10 teachers from Cuba will travel to the African nation in the first months of 2009. The Angolan leaders are looking to eliminate widespread illiteracy before 2014 or at least reduce it to a minimal extent by that year.

Higher education

Immediately after independence, the public Universidade Agostinho Neto (UAN) was founded, incorporating the faculties that had been created during the late colonial period, in Luanda and Huambo. Shortly afterwards the Catholic Church founded, also in Luanda, the Universidade Católica de Angola (UCAN). Over the years, the UAN came to consist of about 40 faculties dispersed over most of the territory. In the wake if political liberalization, private universities began to spring up in the late 1990s. Some of these were linked to universities in Portugal, namely Universidade Lusíada, Universidade Lusófona and Universidade Jean Piaget, all of them in Luanda. Others were endogenous initiatives: Universidade Privada de Angola (Luanda and Lubango), Universidade Técnica de Angola (Luanda), Universidade Metodista (Luanda), Universidade Metropolitana (Luanda) and Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Relações Internacionais (Luanda). The creation of an Islamic university in Luanda has been announced by Saudi Arabia. In 2010, the UAN split up: while it still exists under the same name in Luanda and Bengo province, the faculties existing in Benguela, Cabinda, Huambo, Lubango and Malanje now constitute autonomous public universities.

External links

Profile of education in Angola from UNICEF
Profile of higher education in Angola from Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
Profile of higher education in Angola from UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
Profile of information communication technology in education in Angola from infoDev
InfoDev
infoDev is a special program of the World Bank and many other international development agencies focusing on how the use of information and communication technologies can help to combat poverty and promote opportunity, empowerment and economic growth in developing countries, a field of activity...

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