Dundo - The minister of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Maria do Rosário Bragança, said Tuesday that the Angolan State will continue to carry out reforms to improve the quality of teaching and learning at universities, with the aim to train qualified staff.
Speaking at the ceremony of laying the foundation stone for the construction of the Dundo University campus, in north-eastern Lunda Norte Province, the minister said the universities should provide the country with adequate and qualified staff with capacity to contribute to the sustainable development of Angola.
According to the minister, the investments being made in infrastructures meet the need to provide a suitable environment for students, teachers and researchers, enabling the teaching and learning process to be carried out in an environment worthy of an institution of higher education.
Despite difficulties of various kinds, particularly economic ones, the Angolan state and its partners have been creating material and human means capable of improving the working conditions of professors by building new infrastructures for both teaching and scientific research.
The expansion of higher education throughout the country, which started with the restructuring of the public Agostinho Neto University (UAN) in 2009, made the country have in all provinces institutions of this level, thus preventing citizens from flocking to Luanda, the country’s capital, to excel academically.
The minister praised the availability of state-owned diamond company Endiama EP to finance the construction of the university campus of Dundo, calling on other companies to follow the example, in the scope of their social responsibilities, for the development of the country in all areas.
Bragança stressed that the construction of the university campus in Dundo is part of the materialization of the Angolan government's perspectives for long-term development of the higher education sector.
The university campus of Dundo, with 74 classrooms, will be built in 24 months, in an area of 19,000 square meters in the urban district of Mussungue and will house the faculties of Law and Economics, of the Lueji A'nkonde University.
Budgeted at 50 million US dollars, the campus will contain a rectory building, two rooms for mock trials, student and faculty residences, libraries, auditorium, administrative and leisure areas, among other compartments inherent to the academic activity.
The project financed by Endiama EP, will house more than 3,000 students annually in the Law and Economics courses, in the first phase.
