Island nation plans to widen higher education offerings

The underdeveloped higher education system of the African archipelago country São Tomé and Príncipe is growing slowly amid expanding demand, and is being assisted by international projects and funds.

One major potential initiative that may cause significant progress involves this lusophone country being chosen by the Pan African Institute for Development (PAID) to host a future International University of Development Sciences.

According to the São Tomé and Príncipe Director-General of Higher Education Wanda da Costa, PAID wanted to extend its network of higher education institutions to a Portuguese-speaking country, and the island nation, off the coast of Gabon in West Africa, was chosen over fellow lusophone archipelago Cape Verde.

The agreement with the government was signed in February 2020, she told University World News

PAID also runs higher education institutions in four other countries: Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Zambia and Morocco.

It secures funds for their operations by private fund-raising via a PAID foundation and through student fees.

Concerned to spread development across a country where the capital, São Tomé, according to 2018 figures, already had 71,868 out of the 211,028 people resident nationwide, the government has provided land for the future PAID campus in Mé-Zóchi, the second-most populous district.

But, initially, PAID will rent facilities, probably in the capital city (although it has yet to sign a lease), Da Costa said, for a soft-launch anticipated by the end of 2021, slowly building up services. The plan for 2021-22 is to run a widening PhD programme in São Tomé and Príncipe.

High literacy rate

She said the plan was for PAID to offer courses that the Santomean higher education system does not cover sufficiently, such as engineering, health, applied science and technology, she explained. In the future, the new university will offer bachelor, postgraduate education and professional education.

Da Costa underlined that this is “a macro project”, aiming to recruit a “considerable number” of students, including from other countries in the region. She hoped a major PAID-owned campus would be launched, and soon, but could not give a projected opening date.

According to the director-general, some students will get scholarships, with classes being in English, French and also in Portuguese, with some lecturers being recruited from São Tomé and Príncipe and others from overseas.

Certainly, there is potential in this small country of two main islands (named São Tomé and Príncipe). It has not been hit overly hard (thus far) by COVID-19, having recorded just 2,334 cases by 20 May. Also, the Santomean GDP grew 3.1% in 2020, especially through public investments and projects financed by international support.

For instance, in March 2021, a US$1.3 billion project to build a future Malanza Free Trade Zone in southern São Tomé by Canadian-Jordanian investor Shehab Shanti. These plans include the establishment of another new private university alongside a training centre, hotels, a hospital and a marina.

The project still needs a development plan and a study of the environmental impact, but it has been hailed by Santomean media as the largest potential private investment in the country. The goal is to transform the country into a regional service centre and create 9,000 jobs.

Such plans are aided by the country having one of the highest literacy rates in sub-Saharan Africa (91%). It is also one of the most stable and democratic nations in the whole continent – governments have been elected in and out of office since the installation of multiparty government in 1991.

Public higher education

The government wants human resources ready for a modern economy, projecting São Tomé and Príncipe as a country of services, but, before that, a local mathematics professor, Isabel Abreu, advises the government to increase funding for higher education.

Abreu teaches at the first and only public university in the country, the University of São Tomé and Príncipe (USTP), which was created in 2014 by merging three institutions. They were the Higher Polytechnic Institute of São Tomé and Príncipe, the country’s School for the Training of Teachers and Educators, and its Institute of Health Sciences.

The new university was supported that year when the directorate-general for higher education created and published a national higher education regulatory system.

Abreu is also the author of a research paper on the challenges at the USTP’s Higher Institute of Education and Communication. In 2019, she noted a lack of study materials, infrastructure and full-time lecturers, with 92% working part-time and without enough time to research and prepare classes.

The lecturer told University World News that, in two years, the situation has not improved much, but the university authorities are working to hire “more permanent teachers”.

Such problems are experienced university-wide, she said, noting that informatics scholars lack an informatics laboratory.

Generally, USTP facilities are “very limited”, even given the small number of students – 961 in 2019-20.

Abreu recommends more decentralisation of study work, with investment in distance learning to solve mobility issues facing serving an archipelago whose two main islands are 173km apart.

Most classes are currently held in the capital, São Tomé – and transport links even on the main island of São Tomé are poor.

Often, classes have to finish earlier because most students have to use the public transportation for high schools to get home, she noted.

Moreover, because of weak public funding, about 70% of USTP students conduct paid work while studying, she said.

Despite the general rise in GDP, the COVID-19 pandemic depressed many families’ incomes in a country highly dependent on tourism and where more than two-thirds of the population are poor, using the World Bank higher poverty line of US$3.20 per day, according to the World Bank.

For the time being, the government may lack the financial resources to invest more in higher education, but Abreu argued: “Higher education is not a priority for certain governments.”

Institutional assessment

One concern she has is that rich Santomeans, including the children of senior government officials have “perhaps” been securing higher education scholarships to study abroad, reducing pressure from political elites for domestic higher education investment.

Da Costa contested this, saying that, even though the government sends students abroad, including from “many modest [not well-off] families”, it also provides scholarships for studies in the country. The problem, she said, is that São Tomé and Príncipe cannot yet offer higher education in many subject areas, due to budgetary constraints.

That said, according to local media reports, there has been a reduction in public investment in education, with the sector getting 15% of the national budget in 2019 and 9.4% in 2021.

Public funds are mostly devoted to paying salaries (and scholarships), which “unfortunately, does not create conditions for the university to grow”, the director-general of higher education stressed.

Alongside USTP, there are also currently two private higher education entities – the University Accounting Institute, Administration and Computing (IUCAI, in the Portuguese acronym), in São Tomé, on São Tomé island, and the Lusíada University of São Tomé e Príncipe, in São Tomé, on São Tomé island, linked to the Universidade Lusíada in Lisbon (Minerva Foundation).

Some students are also taking advantage of a cooperation agreement between Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe (a Portuguese colony until 1975), which allowed the University of Évora, in south-central Portugal, to offer postgraduate education in the capital city of São Tomé, “according to the needs of the country”, Da Costa explained.

Furthermore, each year dozens of students study abroad, because the country’s higher education institutions cannot meet the “exponential” demand, and “the areas [of study] are also very limited”, she said. There are scholarships to send students to Portugal, China, Russia, Romania and Morocco, but, in some cases, the government must help financially, too.

The São Tomé and Príncipe government has asked for international help in other ways for instance, asking Brazil to develop a local Higher Education Assessment System, which was completed in December, 2019.

Now, the government can follow procedures in line with internationally accepted standards in terms of quality assessment, transparency and good governance regarding higher education.

Under the project, new laws were created, and a first institutional assessment took place. According to Da Costa, some institutions did not agree with the results.

The reports, however, highlighted the lack of infrastructure and equipment and how this impeded the launch of new courses, and teachers lacking postgraduate education, she said, adding: “There are courses without specialists in the field [of study].”

This year, the government wants to disseminate the results of the assessment to the community and “work with the institutions to overcome the indicators in which they are not very good”, she said, underlining that “there is still a lot to do” and even her department and the ministry of education and higher education need improvements.

Meanwhile, the government is also working with Brazil to start a second part of this project, developing curriculum assessment.

Higher education may also benefit in a limited way from a US$3.5 million Integrated Support Programme for the Educational System in São Tomé and Príncipe (PAISE-STP), launched by the Portuguese government in January 2020 – and which is being implemented by the Lisbon-based Marquês de Valle Flôr Institute.

While its key focus is secondary education, the local coordinator, José Carlos Aragão, told University World News that the project is helping to “update and improve” the USTP academic and administrative services and create a legal framework for teacher training.

If the pandemic subsides sufficiently, the project will enable 12 USTP lecturers to undertake research internships at the Portuguese universities of Aveiro and Évora, which provide technical assistance to the PAISE-STP.

This collaboration will help bring the USTP closer to similar institutions in other countries after the project, he said.

This news feature was updated on 8 June 2021.