LUANDA, Anglola — Slightly less than twice the size of Texas and located in Southern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean between Namibia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, lies Angola. In 2002, Angola ended its civil war. After 27-years of internal conflict, the country continues to struggle to rebuild itself.
Up to 1.5 million lives may have been lost and four million people displaced during more than a quarter-century of fighting. Angola’s Vice President Manual Vicente spoke earlier this year in Soyo, a northern Zaire province, at the official opening ceremony of the 2015 school year. There, Vicente announced the preparation of the National Education Development Plan for 2015/2025. The Plan, described by All Africa, is “an important methodological tool for the management of the short and medium term education system.”
“We want a competitive education system and make progress towards offering quality education, based on foundations of modern scientific management and focused on the achievement of results that characterizes the improved efficiency and internal efficiency and its equity,” Vicente said.
According to Angola’s Vice President, the country will still face challenges. He believes that the country needs an education system that prepares its students for freedom and the exercise of citizenship. In order to achieve this, Vicente listed some of the hurdles that the country would face in terms of bettering education, mentioning the organization of the school network across the country and the children that are left out of the education system.
Furthermore, Vice President Vicente commented on the lack of qualified teachers and the issues that come from the exodus of teachers from remote and rural areas to the cities due to a lack of patriotic and professional commitment to the cause.
“These challenges are exacerbated by sharp and deliberate disregard for the law and other operating regulations, including the indiscipline by some teachers and students,” All Africa reports Vicente stating.
We have seen Angola take actions toward bettering and furthering the development of their education system in the past. Angola’s literacy rate totaled to 70.4 percent in 2011—the female literacy rate at only 58.6 percent. Similarly, there is a trend in gender gaps with Angola’s school life expectancy, totaling to 11 years—males at 14 years and females at only nine years in 2011 as well. Angola’s child labor rates are also something to take into account. In 2001, the CIA World Factbook estimated the total number of child labor at 832,895, translating to about 24 percent.
Hopefully, government projects and the end of the war will better these numbers. Angola took part in the “Education for All” goals that were expected by 2015. Angola managed to triple the number of children in primary education from two to six million from 2002 to 2013. During this period, the number of illiterate adults was halved from 85 percent at the time of independence in 1975 to around 30 percent, while the access to pre-primary education increased from 12 percent to nearly 40 percent since 2000.
In 2013, UNESCO reported that only a little over 30 percent of school children achieved primary education. This is extremely low in comparison to the African average (63 percent). UNESCO also attempted to assist Angola’s efforts in four areas: (1) Assistance in mobilizing different private and public partners, (2) Tailor socio-educational interventions to meet the challenges of accelerating Education for All, (3) Provide technical support in areas of low educational performance and (4) Adjust the National Education for All efforts in Angola to comply with the acceleration mechanism established by UNESCO.
– Eastin Shipman
Sources: All Africa, CIA World Factbook, UNESCO
Photo: ADPP