Church universities – A growing player in HE accessibility

Although religious universities educate only about 15% of all higher education students in Mozambique, they make a significant contribution to a country with very low levels of access to tertiary studies.

Currently, only 1% of the 29 million Mozambicans attend higher education courses, according to data provided by the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology, Higher and Technical Vocational Education.

Religious university officials told University World News they represent an alternative way to develop inclusive and accessible higher education by charging low rates and building faculties in regions poorly served by government-owned higher education institutions.

According to data from the ministry, by the end of 2018 there were 40 higher education institutions in Mozambique, of which 18 are public and 22 privately-owned. Of the latter, six are religious. In 2017, there were 178,020 higher education students, of which 116,037 (67%) were at public universities and 58,765 (33%) in private institutions – religious and secular. Religious universities grew in 2018 and now educate around 36,500 students.

The United Methodist University of Mozambique, the latest religious university created in Mozambique, launched in 2017, has a mission to educate all Mozambicans, equipping them “with knowledge, ethical and moral values and citizenship” so they can “participate actively and creatively in the challenges of the social, cultural and economic transformation of the country", according to Félix Mazive, one of the university’s administrators.

Significant growth

Based in Morrumbene, Inhambane province, one of the poorest regions of Mozambique, the United Methodist University is currently the only higher education institution in this south-eastern district, and already has 151 students enrolled in four undergraduate courses (management and administration; social sciences and arts; computing and engineering; and theology) and offers a masters in pedagogy. The university is growing, planning to double student numbers by 2020 and keep expanding.

"The university is important for the local population who used to go to Maputo [the capital] to be able to continue their studies," Mazive told University World News. Partly funded by the United Methodist Church of Mozambique, the university charges a relatively affordable basic tuition fee of MZN4,800 (US$75) per month for courses, with engineering courses costing a little more.

According to the World Bank, the average annual income per head in 2017 was just US$420, with income levels actually falling in recent years.

The United Methodist University of Mozambique is following in the successful footsteps of another religious university – the Catholic University of Mozambique (UCM), which opened in 1996, headquartered in Beira, Central Mozambique and which now has 13 branches in other cities within Central and Northern Mozambique.

The institution opened four years after the end of Mozambique’s 1977-92 civil war, which killed more than 1 million people. Beira had been a stronghold of RENAMO, the former right-wing rebel movement that had fought the war against the then leftist FRELIMO government.

Largest privately-owned institution

With more than 30,000 students enrolled for the academic year 2019, studying about 200 undergraduate and masters courses and four doctoral courses, the Catholic University of Mozambique is currently the largest privately-owned university in Mozambique and the second largest university in the country.

It has just 10,000 students less than the state-run Eduardo Mondlane University, which has 40,000 students and was inherited from the former Portuguese colonial administration.

The Catholic University of Mozambique wants to continue to grow, said Professor Armindo Tambo, deputy rector for administration and finances. This year, the university plans to open a branch in Maputo and Xai-Xai, in Southern Mozambique, he said.

With students paying an average fee of US$100 per month for undergraduate courses, the university is well-financed, although it is currently struggling with the damage wrought by Cyclone Idai last month, which devastated Central Mozambique and especially the city of Beira.

"We are particularly worried about our database system because everything was computerised and records were lost with the destruction of the computer equipment by the cyclone,” said Tambo.

"We have to recover this brain of the Catholic University of Mozambique and work to recover the school buildings that were damaged. We must deal with these problems and for the rest of our plans, we will walk slowly until we get where we want," he said.

The new branches in Maputo and Xai-Xai are a change of direction for the university, which has until now focused mainly on education in the central and northern regions of Mozambique, which have been considered the poorest and most disadvantaged in terms of access to higher education.

Across the institution, UCM approaches higher education in a holistic way, and encourages academic staff to broaden their knowledge and not focus on narrow areas of expertise. “We aim to educate students broadly, so they can better serve Mozambican society," said Tambo.

Poverty

Of course, to achieve this end, students have to finish their courses, and that does not always happen, because they cannot afford the fees, said Silvério Ronguane, director of the faculty of ethics and human and legal sciences at Saint Thomas University of Mozambique, another religious university.

"Some students do not finish their courses because they do not have the money to pay the monthly fees," said Ronguane, "But to provide quality education, we must have it paid for." The university charges fees of an average US$100 per month.

Part of the International Council of Universities of Saint Thomas Aquinas, representing Catholic universities that promote Thomist intellectual and teaching principles devised by St Thomas Aquinas, this university was founded in 2004 and now teaches around 5,000 students in six faculties based around Maputo and its Southern Mozambique hinterland.

Ronguane said the university promotes free thinking through its Thomist philosophical grounding and links to the Dominican monastic order, professing “a reformist character against the elitism within the Catholic church".

The Saint Thomas University of Mozambique is currently expanding, building a new university campus on greenfield land.

"We have our future university campus in the province of Maputo with a space of 70 hectares which is already under construction. We have university campuses in Xai-Xai and in Bilene, Gaza province [also in the south], and we already have all levels of higher education, from undergraduate, to masters and PhD,” said Ronguane.

The other three religious universities in Mozambique include the Adventist University of Mozambique, based in Beira, with 335 students in 2017; the Instituto Superior Dom Bosco, based in Maputo and offering professional courses to 647 students in 2017; and the Instituto Superior Cristão, a religious training institution operating from Teta, Central Mozambique, run by the Brazilian Evangelical Church, with 244 students in 2017.