Government HE reform efforts promote discord and anger

Students and lecturers in Guinea-Bissau have been protesting against their new government firing educational directors and a rector, and their replacements leading a higher education sector that has been accused of being mired in graft and inefficiency.

Guinea-Bissau’s Ministry of the Interior and Public Order formally banned all public demonstrations across the country on 15 January 2024, but anger is simmering over the sackings. There is also tension because the new government is refusing to pay lecturers they say have not been properly registered, and sometimes are not teaching at all.

This Portuguese-speaking West African nation, which has had four successful and more than 10 unsuccessful coups since independence in 1974, has been run by three different governments since the elections in July 2023.

Now the country faces another election in June 2024 after President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in December dissolved Guinea-Bissau’s opposition-controlled parliament. He claimed supporters of the then government had tacitly supported military factions violently clashing in the capital, which amounted to an attempted coup.

A new government appointed on 20 December 2023 seems to have promoted more instability in the education sector after decisions by the ministry of national education, higher education and scientific research sparked more protests.

Managers not up to the task

This included the sacking in January of Miguel Soares da Gama, a deputy director at a teacher training college. He had improved the college’s management while reducing student fees, said Diamantino Lopes, political analyst, sociologist, and lecturer at the private universities Lusophone University of Guinea (Universidade Lusófona da Guiné) and Colinas de Boé University (Universidade Colinas de Boé).

“Students understood that there was a lot of corruption and disorganisation before the arrival of Soares da Gama,” said Lopes, who argues that public higher education institutions in Guinea-Bissau lack managers who are up to the challenge. This pertains to the “academic-scientific [ones], but, above all, administrative and management”.

After the deputy director’s dismissal, students boycotted classes on 11 January 2024 at the training college in Bissau, Radio Sol Mansi reported.

Meanwhile, in mid-January, lecturers at Amílcar Cabral University (Universidad Amílcar Cabral or UAC), the only public university in Guinea-Bissau, demanded the dismissal of a new rector, Herculano Arlindo Mendes, who was appointed on 2 January in an acting capacity even though he has only a masters degree. Lecturers issued a statement emphasising that the university has been headed by an academic with a PhD since its creation in 1999.

Mendes had replaced Lili Pontinta Cá, dismissed by the new government the same day, said Juviecson Nuno Correia, president of the UAC Students’ Association. He told University World News that the government should have considered the competence and experience of the rector more carefully. The fact that both the vice-rector and the university’s scientific council president have PhDs added fuel to the criticism.

‘Government has the right to choose leaders’

Guinea-Bissau’s higher education sector has 31 higher education institutions, 11 public and 20 private, including the state-run colleges Tchico Té Higher Normal School (Escola Normal Superior Tchico Té) and the National School of Administration (Escola Nacional de Administração).

The tertiary education protests have spread to secondary schools over dismissals of other established Guinea-Bissau directors, leading to clashes with police at the Hafia high school in the capital, Bissau, and Quemo Mané high school, in Mansoa, northern Guinea-Bissau, eGLOBAL reported.

Djibrilo Djaló, a junior minister and the new secretary of state for higher education and scientific research, told University World News that the government had the right to choose the directors of state universities, colleges and schools.

He said that “most, as in 90%” of the new education directors were already directors in the past, therefore they have experience in education, and that he finds no legal impediment to appointing a rector lacking a PhD.

He declined to comment on the specific work of each dismissed director but emphasised that his government was concerned that the former directors of teacher training colleges and the National School of Administration had racked up salary commitments of “around €1.5 million” (US$1.6 million) for lecturers who had not been properly registered with the government. “Whether this is good management, I honestly don’t know,” he said.

Higher education almost paralysed

Regardless of the recent controversies, Guinea-Bissau’s higher education sector has deep-seated problems. Correia said that, since 2018, his association has been pressing key governmental officials to deliver “administrative and financial autonomy for the university”.

The association has demanded “depoliticisation”, with rectors chosen by public tenders, and academic elections, instead of being nominated by the minister of higher education and scientific research. Students also want a university general assembly to be established to debate the UAC’s activities, financial reports, and “the execution of the plans” presented by a rector when assuming office.

Unfortunately, political parties offer election campaign supporters jobs in public institutions should they win office, regardless of their academic qualifications, he argued. UAC students took this concern to Djaló, who met the UAC students’ association on 21 February 2024 and provided a “very disappointing” response, according to Correia.

He believes students were called for a meeting only because politicians are afraid of new protests against the rector’s nomination, fuelled by payment debts owed to teachers.

Djaló, a lawyer who has worked in various public administration positions, including a legal support office in the ministry of education, was, nonetheless, optimistic following the meeting. He told University World News that the government is committed to solving the “most pressing” issues, especially debts owed to lecturers, which continue to spark strikes in the sector.

“The UAC is operating at half-speed and other public higher education institutions – some are on strike, some are practically not working” – due to a lack of teachers, he said. The secretary of state said higher public education colleges hired professionals in the 2022-23 academic year without getting the government’s green light, and so salary debts have been left unpaid. This is “an embarrassing situation for the whole system”, which the new government is trying to solve, he said.

Ban placed on pay for absent lecturers

Another problem was that some higher education and secondary institutions had been paying teachers who had failed to teach: “We have a shortage of teachers, but every month a huge amount of public funds is spent on teachers’ salaries,” Djaló said. A survey showed that at least 2,000 teachers on tertiary and secondary levels “are not in the country, or they are, but they are not working ...”

As a result, the government, in an extraordinary council of ministers focused on education, decided on 22 February to block payments to these non-working teachers, which created “a lot of antipathy”, he noted.

The ministerial meeting approved a directive for regulating postgraduate courses in Guinea-Bissau, a proposal left outstanding for years, Djaló stressed. He added that the government also plans to “rehabilitate many schools”, including higher education institutions, and is working on adapting how Guinea-Bissau higher education courses better fit the country’s needs.

“The UAC currently lacks some fundamental instruments for its functioning ... It does not have its own statutes and the government is working on this,” he said.

In the meantime, however, instability at the UAC is leading to many lecturers and even students leaving the institution, Correia said.

Politics involved in education

Lopes complained that governments assume education is “a poor relative sector, that is a service sector and not one that generates income”, which is wrong because, despite it being public, students pay fees, he said. This attitude has caused governments to make poor senior appointments and fail to invest in the sector.

“Suddenly, students are becoming aware of this and are starting to demand [less politicisation of Guinea-Bissau higher education],” a call Lopes hopes will garner public support.

Lopes said politicians rule the country exploiting religious and ethnic splits and, thus, “society is very divided”, with young people joining political parties to gain jobs in a country where the public sector “absorbs the majority of labour” and “the private sector does not work”, meaning labour protests and demands are tainted politically, weakening their arguments, he said.

With jobs awarded for political loyalty, work quality is low. This lowers the motivation of university students to master their studies, with many keen to join overseas universities, the political analyst noted.

Djaló accepted this as a problem, and that young people have this “very harmful and erroneous” idea, given that even if they join political parties they will still have to compete for positions through acquiring qualifications.

The secretary of state argued that protesters should be more worried about the “quality of the education” in colleges and universities, rather than who holds leadership roles: “We all must contribute with our abilities ... regardless of our political sensitivity. We all have a political party, which is Guinea-Bissau,” he added.

Correia, however, said: “Almost all governments have tried to fragment the UAC Students’ Association so that we can stop our demands, both through intimidation and by corrupting some students.” He said he has been threatened with violence and those close to him receive intimidating phone calls.