Academics ask for quality rather than quantity in HE

National and international academics have warned Guinea-Bissau that the expansion of its higher education must not sacrifice quality and relevance, so that academics and students are better able to meet the needs of one of the world’s poorest and most fragile countries.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the most coup-prone and politically unstable countries in the world, according to the World Bank, which noted it had a US$2,200 gross domestic income per head in 2022.

A new interim government taking office in June has been presented with higher education options within a ‘Study Diagnosis of HE and Scientific Research: Opportunities and recommendations’ released in June 2022 by the Portuguese NGO Faith and Cooperation Foundation (FEC, in the Portuguese acronym) and funded by the European Union.

It warned that the higher education sector has evolved at a fast pace, but with little regulation, and with a “strongly asymmetric” network, with more private than public higher education institutions (20 compared to 11) and with 54.8% of colleges and universities headquartered in the capital, Bissau.

What does the report say?

Authors Belmiro Cabrito, a former education lecturer at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, and Carlos Cardoso, the general director of the Bissau-Guinean Amilcar Cabral Social Studies Centre (CESAC, in the Portuguese acronym), noted there were too many higher education courses in subjects such as economics, business sciences and humanities, while scientific and technological courses represent only 11% of the offer.

Guinea-Bissau needs more bachelor courses in areas linked to the exploitation and transformation of the country’s natural wealth, such as fisheries, they stressed.

To solve this issue while dealing with a continued lack of human and financial resources, private universities and other companies should be involved, said the report. It stressed that firms are forced to train the young graduates they employ and to hire foreigners – passing on costs that could be reduced by effective higher education.

The authors also suggested creating a Guinea-Bissau “public agency for certifying higher education courses to guarantee uniformity in the curricula” and course names; “more equitable access conditions to higher education”, plus “sustained financing of public institutions and support for private higher education institutions”, among other initiatives.

Bissau-Guinean Carlos Lopes, former United Nations assistant secretary-general and political director to the late former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, and an honorary professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance based at the University of Cape Town, told University World News: “For a country that attained independence in 1973 with 19 university graduates, the imperative of establishing a higher education system became symbolic.

“I am afraid form might have taken over depth. The country now has a large number of graduates that are short-changed with diplomas that are neither corresponding to society’s requirements nor have the quality that allow the privileged ones to benefit from recognition abroad.”

According to the FEC’s study, in the academic year 2021-22, there were 17,025 students, 31% more than two years before, and more than the 15,000 that were expected by 2025.

Better teaching conditions needed

Rui Moutinho Sá, of Portugal, one of the founders of the Union of Lecturers and Staff of the Lusophone University of Guinea (SINDEF, in the Portuguese acronym) and anthropology lecturer at the University of Lisbon, stressed that the Guinean higher education is no more than two decades old and is based on a very precarious teaching structure.

There are high levels of illiteracy – 47%, says World Bank data on this country of 2.1 million people and education policy debates continue on overusing Portuguese as the country’s official language (and, hence, of teaching) despite people speaking mainly in Creole, he mentioned.

In Sá’s opinion, Guinea-Bissau should debate the importance of vocational education, while creating structures to regulate the whole higher education sector. For instance, he added, the West African country needs a reinforcement of teacher training.

According to the FEC’s study, most lecturers have no postgraduate education, are poorly paid, have an excessive workload and no facilities, time or finance with which to conduct research.

To Sá, Guinea-Bissau higher education needs “its own dedicated teaching staff, as happens in any country in the world”, instead of having most lecturers teach without working contracts.

Currently, lecturers opt for “longer-term projects”, sometimes with NGOs and international organisations, to secure greater job security, sometimes leaving students without classes, and “it’s not always easy” to find replacements in the middle of the semesters, he stressed.

The lecturer also suggests that a regulation be passed ensuring new courses have “a minimum number of teachers who have a high level of specialisation in the area”, regardless of their academic degree.

Poor working conditions

Also, Abulai Djaura, president of the National Network of Youth Associations of Guinea-Bissau (RENAJ, in the Portuguese acronym) and adviser to the rectory of the Lusophone University of Guinea for academic affairs and institutional relations, praised the “hard work” and improvements in higher education undertaken thus far, but agreed that more is needed, especially for teachers.

For instance, in May, lecturers at the Amílcar Cabral University, in Bissau, the only public university in the country, stopped working due to non-payment of five months’ debts, and, Djaura warned, strikes “jeopardise all the learning effort in qualitative terms”.

Djaura questioned the quality of teaching training schools in Guinea-Bissau because directors are chosen by politicians and, therefore, they “are more concerned with pleasing the political people who put them there” instead of with the goals of the schools.

Besides, he added, there is an “excess number of students in the class” and teachers don’t have the means to do “scientific research”, therefore, course content remains static, without considering “evolution in the world”.

Assuming these problems are tackled, he told University World News that health and education should be priorities for higher education expansion, because “in the most remote communities”, there are “no doctors or nurses with a university degree” in health centres, which is “really dangerous”. Also, some secondary and primary schools lack qualified teachers.

Postgraduate education required

Djaura praised the Bissau-Guinean students for their commitment and “ambition to study and research” and leave higher education with knowledge, but, due to the “lack of opportunity for employment” or “decent internships”, and thanks to their ambition to know more, “more than 90% intend to go abroad to pursue masters degrees”.

The current failure of the country to offer postgraduate education is, therefore, of major concern and needs to be addressed, he said, along with expanding higher education institution satellite units in the country’s rural areas.

Fortunately, in January, the Guinea-Bissau government announced the launch of a first masters degree in the country, at the Escola Normal Superior Tchico Te, in Bissau, studying the Portuguese language, starting in the academic year 2022-23.

This will be operated with the help of Portugal’s Camões Institute, a government agency promoting the Portuguese language and culture, which is financed with international aid.

Sá stressed that, regardless of the lack of job opportunities, in a demographically very young country whose median age is 18.8 years old, education allows “social ascension”.

But the orientation of course topic to market needs is important. He recalled how, in 2014, he founded the first degree in environmental and sea sciences in Guinea-Bissau, at the private Lusophone University of Guinea, to address a shortage of technicians in the management of natural resources and protected areas as well as fisheries and sea resources.

Sá argued that “bid-funding” entities, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), should also invest in Guinea-Bissau’s higher education considering “what the country considers strategic”.

Political instability

It would help, said Djaura, if “the government ... adopted a clear, solid public policy that can be translated into something concrete”.

Political instability has not helped, with Guinea-Bissau having had, since independence, four successful coups and another 17 coups attempted, plotted, or alleged, according to the World Bank.

As a result, it has been tough to develop higher education “without counting on internal and international partners”. To develop policies and projects, with specific strategies and work schedules, more political stability is needed.

Considering this, Sá calls for a long-term “regime pact for education” between the different political parties, because “investing in education implies that results are not short-term”.

Thanks to the past instability, state budgets are not approved, with education institutions being financed on a month-to-month basis or sometimes not at all – which, for instance, hinders an “effective system of national scholarships” and heightens university dropout or student debt.

Hopefully, the new government will last long enough to make good on Guinea-Bissau’s long-standing higher education development goals.

The Guinea-Bissau Ministry of National Education and Higher Education was unavailable to reply to questions by University World News for this article.