National evaluation leads to suspension of 83 health courses

Angolan higher education institutions and students are opposing the suspension of government recognition of 83 higher education health courses following a 2024 review, which left little time for universities and colleges to resolve identified problems.

For the time being, applicant students have been blocked from joining these courses in the current academic year, which began in October (2024), after the government released critical assessments of these courses last May and August.

The health course review was the first phase of a review that will cover the entire Angolan higher education sector, which has since shifted focus to education courses. On 12 February (2025) reviewers released fresh results on education courses, which also identified problems.

Angola’s National Institute for Assessment, Accreditation and Recognition of Higher Education Studies (Instituto Nacional de Avaliação, Acreditação e Reconhecimento de Estudos do Ensino Superior, or INAAREES) has established independent commissions of national and foreign experts for these assessments of courses offered by 31 public and 75 private higher education entities in this Portuguese-speaking Southern African country.

A reduction in course places

The suspension of health courses has led to a reduction in course place numbers nationwide, the Secretary of State for Higher Education, Eugénio Alves da Silva, told Angolan Portuguese language news media.

According to the Angolan Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (Ministério do Ensino Superior, Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação Angola, or MESCTI) there were 191,752 Angolan course places in the 2024-25 academic year, 38,980 less than in 2023-24.

Health-related sciences accounted for 15.4% of these student numbers, with losses in health-related course numbers accounting for 14,000 to 15,000 fewer places, said da Silva.

INAAREES’ verdict was severe, given it found more than half of the 145 higher education health courses examined did not meet required conditions, such as academic staff working full-time and having access to an institutional research policy.

The result is that their universities and colleges have been told they cannot welcome new students for two years while they address the highlighted shortcomings, after which a new assessment will take place. Only students enrolled during the 2023-4 academic year or earlier can continue their studies and receive degrees and diplomas.

Some courses that passed secured accreditations valid for two years, but conditionally, and were being told to improve specific areas, according to notes released by the ministry.

Education course assessment

The education course assessment has been similarly tough, with 148 out of 287 courses not accredited.

Indeed, the Minister of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Albano Ferreira, said that the results achieved by evaluations done so far “demonstrate a weak or negative performance” by higher education institutions.

Education courses found in breach of review standards will also be blocked from recruiting new students for two years – in this case, from October 2025.

Ferreira asked for “a spirit of fair play” and cooperation to solve “such complex and demanding challenges”, arguing that higher education entities are responsible for solving their own weaknesses.

“We still have a long way to go,” he said, adding that, to help to solve the situation, there are plans to be implemented under the National Development Plan 2023-27 to improve Angola’s higher education quality and their spending of “internal or external funding”.

New equipment and facilities are, for instance, being provided at the University Hospital of Agostinho Neto University (UAN), in the capital, Luanda, part of the largest public university in the country.

Angola’s President João Lourenço has backed the assessment plan, highlighting the need for joint actions to analyse the results, “adjusting the procedures and training those involved”.

Operators want more flexibility

The government’s policy has been criticised, however. Ilídio Simão, spokesperson for the Association of Private Angolan Higher Education Institutions (Associação das Instituições do Ensino Superior Privado Angolano, or AIESPA), told University World News that, while this is “a necessary process” to boost Angolan higher education’s competitiveness and to boost performance in international rankings, “institutions with non-accredited courses need more time and support to make the necessary investments to correct the non-conformities identified”.

He told University World News that it “should not be punitive, but rather an essentially pedagogical instrument”.

Simão asked for “greater flexibility” to solve the identified problems, stressing that Angola is still suffering from the 27-year-long civil war of independence, from 1975 to 2002, which means higher education growth has been recent, also highlighting that there is still an insufficient number of lecturers with PhDs.

There are courses with only “two or three doctorates”, and a PhD takes more than two years to complete, stressed Simão, asking for the government to provide more PhD scholarships in a country where teaching has a poor reputation due to low wages, causing lecturers to accumulate multiple jobs, leaving little time for research.

The review may worsen these qualified staff shortages, because higher education institutions losing course recognitions might have to dismiss lecturers, warned Simão, adding: “Many institutions will have to leave the market.”

Private higher education

To him, in a country with a “very high population growth rate” of 3%, it would be “fair” for the state to admit Angola lacks public universities and, therefore, give private institutions a maximum tuition fee to charge and help them with the remaining costs.

Instead, the government sets a limit for tuition fees, which leaves private universities “suffocated” and unable to invest in laboratories and equipment to improve medical courses, losing competitiveness, he warned.

He suggested other forms of support, “such as tax exemptions” for institutions importing materials and equipment not produced in Angola, such as computers or laboratory materials.

Less room for poorer students

Pressure from the Angolan Students Movement (Movimento de Estudantes Angolanos, or MEA) in 2023 encouraged the finance ministry to impose tuition fee caps based on annual inflation.

Thus, for instance, the private Jean Piaget University of Angola, also based in Luanda, increased tuition fees by 10.62% from January 2024 to Angolan kwanza KOA58,000 (US$63) per month, (instead of a planned 128.5%, in a country where the monthly minimum wage is AOA70,000 (US$76).

Lack of political will?

MEA president Francisco Teixeira has been unhappy with the review overall, for “killing the dream of these young people” who worked hard to enter university by closing more courses in public institutions than in private entities, where a medical degree is “very expensive” and, in some cases, reaching AOA200,000 (US$217).

Indeed, only one public university, Lubango-based Mandume ya Ndemufayo University, in southern Angola, had a bachelor degree in medicine approved by the review.

Teixeira does not see the political will to solve these issues, since, for instance, improvement work planned for the UAN medicine faculty has yet to begin, leaving only 1.5 years before the next assessment.

The student leader questioned what happened to the money “the state has been investing in the past 10 years” in the UAN, adding that there are public universities without toilet paper, water or functioning bathrooms, let alone “libraries in good condition” or internet.

“Why do you close [courses at] the faculty of medicine [of the UAN] when you keep other private faculties open, which have worse conditions?” he questioned, stressing that “education in Angola has become a business for very powerful people”, including rulers in higher positions.

Last October (2024), police blocked MEA protests against the assessment results and closed a press conference on the issue in Luanda, even though Teixeira said the MEA “complied with the legal requirements”.

The Angola National Police did not respond to University World News questions regarding these restrictions.

Demands for improvement in medical courses

The MEA has written to the Public Prosecutor’s Office asking it to revoke the bans. But the student body has received no reply: “We have no hope, because of the [education] lobbies,” said Teixeira, saying MEA members are writing to the government “demanding that [improvement] work begin” at the faculties of medicine with suspended degrees.

Even though INAAREES offers independent assessments, Teixeira does not understand how the minister, who “controls the universities and who controls INAAREES”, “tells himself: ‘I am incapable’, by closing courses breaching legal requirements”.

“This is how education is being ruined in Angola ... Those who study here, for the most part, are not the children of the rulers,” he stressed.

Furthermore, “all courses at public universities lack teachers”, leaving some students in limbo waiting to finish their studies, Teixeira noted, accusing the government of paying salaries to lecturers who have long ceased teaching, but are members of the ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

Meanwhile, Angola suffers from youth unemployment of 56%, with many people working for informal businesses, Teixeira warned: “We are protected by God alone, otherwise it is not by the government. We now have a cholera outbreak, for which our universities cannot provide solutions.”

Eduardo Caiangula, the president of the Angolan Nurses Association (Ordem dos Enfermeiros de Angola, or ORDENFA) told University World News that Angola lacks 38,591 nurses, according to official data. The review could help boost nursing education “if institutions have minimum conditions for the teaching-learning process”, he said.

INAAREES and the MESCTI ministry did not respond to repeated attempts by University World News to get responses to questions before publication.