History of Education in Angola

African access to educational opportunities was highly limited for most of the colonial period in Angola. Many rural Angolan populations of the vast countryside retained their native culture and language and were not able to speak or understand Portuguese. 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 American and Western European standards at the time. Onlyin 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 education developments and change in policy at Lisbon. 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 and Protestant missions. Asa consequence, each of the missions established its own school system, and the children were educated in Portuguese language and culture. Thiscenturies-long missionary educational endeavor in Portuguese Angola was subject to Portuguese coordination with pedagogical and organizational matters. Education beyond the primary level was available to very few black Africans before 1960, and the proportion of the age group that went on to secondary school in the early 1970s was 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. Mostsecondary school teachers were Portuguese. In 1962, the first university established in Angola was founded by the Portuguese authorities — Estudos Gerais Universitários de Angola. Thisfirst Angolan university awarded a range of degrees from engineering to medicine. In 1968, it was renamed Universidade de Luanda (“University of Luanda”). The conflict between the Portuguese military and the nationalist guerrillas, the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974), did not damage effectively this strong education growth started in the late 1950s. However, the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) that ensued after independence left the education system in chaos and the progress achieved in the last two decades was seriously damaged. Withthe independence and the eruption of the civil war, most Portuguese had left (including virtually all secondary school staff), many buildings had been damaged, and availability of instructional materials was limited. To be Continued… Source: https://education.stateuniversity.com