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Angola: Angola Education Profile

2015/09/01

Education System in Angola

Primary Education

Angola has been rocked by civil wars since independence, and only presently is the country’s education beginning to return to normality. Primary education lasts for 4 years, which is the only compulsory phase.

Secondary Education

In the urban areas and larger rural settlements there are secondary schools where traditional academic subjects are presented for 7 years. This marks the end of the national-sponsored education program in Angola.

Vocational Education

Vocational training is receiving significant government support as elements of an industrialized country emerge. A new concept of sustainable vocational training centers is being rolled out in conjunction with foreign governments.

Tertiary Education

Less than 0.7% of Angolan youth attend University in the country. The Universidade Agostinho Neto illustrated here was founded any minute at this time next independence on the back of existing colonial facilities. It gradually extended to over 40 facilities dispersed throughout the country, that were subsequently decentralized again.

There are several private and religious Universities in Luanda linked to European institutions. An Islamic one is being established with assistance from Saudi Arabia.

Conditions Before Independence

African access to educational opportunities was highly limited for most of the colonial period. Until the 1950s, facilities run by the government were few and largely restricted to urban areas. Responsibility for educating Africans rested with Roman Catholic and Protestant missions. As a consequence, each of the missions established its own school system, although all were subject to ultimate control by the Portuguese with respect to certain policy matters.

Education beyond the primary level was available to very few Africans before 1960, and the proportion of the age group that went on to secondary school in the early 1970s was still completely low. Nevertheless, primary school attendance was growing substantially. Whether those entering primary schools were acquiring at least functional literacy in Portuguese was an extra matter. Primary school consisted of a total of years made up of a pair of twoyear cycles.

Portuguese statistics do not indicate how a lot of students completed each of the cycles, but it is estimated that far fewer completed the full years than entered the initial cycle. Similarly, there seems to be general agreement part observers that a great number of those who entered secondary school did not complete it. In general, the quality of teaching at the primary level was low, with instruction carried on largely by Africans with very few qualifications. Most secondary school teachers were Portuguese, but the initial years of secondary school were devoted to materials at the primary level.

Conditions next Independence

The conflict between the Portuguese and the various nationalist movements and the civil war that ensued next independence left the education system in chaos. Most Portuguese instructors had left (inclunding virtually all secondary school staff), a lot of buildings had been damaged, and the availability of instructional materials was limited.

A statement of the Initial Party Congress published in December 1977 gave education high priority. The statement emphasized MarxismLeninism as a base for the education system and its importance in shaping the \"new generation,\" but the objectives of developing national consciousness and respect for traditional values were as well mentioned. The training at all levels of persons who would be able to contribute to economic development was heavily stressed.

The government estimated the level of illiteracy following independence at between 85 % and 90 % and set the elimination of illiteracy as an immediate task. Initiated in November 1976, the literacy drive gave priority to rural peasants who had been completely ignored by the Portuguese education system. The priorities for education were, in order of importance, literacy, primary education, secondary education, and intermediate and university education. The government established the National Literacy Commission (under the leadership of the minister of education) to administer the literacy campaign.

The government reported that in the initial year of the literacy campaign (November 1976 to November 1977) 102,000 adults learned to read and write; by 1980 the figure had risen to 1 million. By 1985 the average rate of adult literacy was officially estimated at 59 %; United States government sources, however, estimated literacy at only 20 %. In late 1987, Angola\'s official press agency, Angop, reported that the provinces with the majority newly literate people included Huíla, Huambo, and Benguela and that 8,152 literacy teachers had participated in the campaign since its inception.

At independence there were 25,000 primary school teachers, but less than 2,000 were even minimally qualified to teach primary school children. The shortage of qualified instructors was even additional pronounced at the secondary school level, where there were only 600 teachers. Furthermore, secondary schools existed only in towns. The Initial Party Congress responded to this problem by resolving to institute an eight-year compulsory system of free, basic education for children between ages and fifteen years of primary education, provided free of charge, began at age. Secondary education, beginning at age eleven, lasted a further years.

School enrollment, which rose very slowly considering Angola\'s youthful people, reflected the dire effects of the insurgency. In 1977 the government reported that additional 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-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 (inclunding vocational school and teacher training students) had increased to 151,759. This made for combined primary and secondary school enrollment consisting of 49 % of the school-age people. By 1986 the primary school enrollment had increased to 1,304,145. Luanda\'s Agostinho Neto University, the country\'s only university, had an enrollment of 4,493 students in 1984, which 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, particularly Cuba. Between 1978 and 1981, Cuba sent 443 teachers to Angola. According to an Angolan source, in 1987 an estimated 4,000 Angolan students, representing-fourth of all foreign students from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean studying in Cuba, were attending Cuban elementary, middle, and college preparatory schools, inclunding polytechnical institutes and the Superior Pedagogical Polytechnic Institute. As well in Cuba, assisting in the education of their compatriots, was a group of twenty Angolan teachers. In addition, the Soviet Union participated in Angolan education programs. Additional than 1,000 Angolan students had graduated from intermediate and specialized higher education programs in the Soviet Union by the end of 1987, at which time 100 Soviet lecturers were teaching at Agostinho Neto University, the Luanda Naval School, and the Institute of Geology and Cartography in the Angolan capital. By mid-1988 United States sources reported that 1,800 Angolan students were studying in the Soviet Union.

A number of Angolan organizations become active during the 1980s in the quest for better educational facilities.In 1987 the JMPLA launched a appropriate 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, inclunding some workers. The OMA not only sponsored programs to teach women to read and write but was as well involved in programs to reduce infant mortality and promote family planning. Even the military formed a appropriate 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 Data, the Angolan government spent additional per capita on the military (US$892) than on education (US$310).

The war in the southern and central regions of the country as well prevented the spread of the school system; the consequences of the fighting, inclunding 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 next was the fact that a lot of of those studying abroad had either failed to complete their courses of study or had not returned to Angola.