Cuito – Angola’s minister of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation Maria do Rosário Bragança Sambo said Tuesday that the process of curricular harmonisation could only end this academic year.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the academic year 2021-2022, presided over by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, the minister underlined that the non-completion of the process was due to the conditions imposed by Covid-19.
She said that the document is already being considered by specialists from the professional associations of the national curricular committees to start being implemented in 2022/2023.
This process is intended to avoid disparities that exist in higher education courses at various institutions, so that the graduate's exit profile fits the needs of the country’s labour market.
Maria do Rosário Bragança Sambo also stated that the initial training of kindergarten teachers and teachers for primary and secondary education calls for the need to build a teacher training subsystem, with a necessary and increasingly impacting nature, with collaboration between the Ministries of Education, Public Administration, Labour and Social Security and Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation.
Furthermore, she informed that the ministry began to analyse at the national level the relevance of the training offer of higher pedagogical education institutions and those that have courses in the areas of education sciences for the proper adaptation to the real needs of the educational system, as established by the national programme training and management of teaching staff.
As part of the improvement of teacher training, Maria Bragança Sambo said that the first year of three master's courses in education methodology in the fields of childhood, primary education and teaching of the Portuguese language, in which 66 teachers are being trained to become trainers in higher education institutes.
In this first year, the training was carried out at a Portuguese university, and the trainees will now attend pedagogical internships in Angola.
For higher education, there are 152,000 vacancies (compared to 133, 672 in 2020/2021).
The government official considers it necessary to enhance the training offer in the areas of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health.
The minister took the opportunity to inform that the ministry will hold, from 29 to 30 November this year, the VII national conference on science and technology and the 2nd fair of inventions, innovation and technology-based entrepreneurship.
Maria do Rosário Bragança Sambo said that these activities are extremely important for the scientific community, for the dissemination of works and for the exchange of experience and exchange at national and international level, where achievements in the fields of science, technology and innovation will be discussed, as well as interacting with partners and creating more bridges for the strengthening of scientific cooperation.
She recalled that this will be the last edition of the conference and fair that will take place under the direct responsibility of the ministry, with future editions being organised by consortia of higher education and development research institutions, with sponsorship from this ministerial department.
Angola has 96 Higher Education Institutions (IES), 32 public and 64 private, divided between academies (1 public), universities (11 public and 10 private), higher institutes (16/52) and higher schools (4/2) .
Military units integrated in the higher education system follow their own regime.
