Ministry wants to elevate STEAM subjects to refocus economy

Angola is working to increase its higher education offerings in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and other fields, including arts, to diversify its oil and gas-dependent economy.

Angola relies on oil activities for about 30% of its GDP, according to 2024 data released by the World Bank. But its government is seeking a more sustainable and diversified economy for the future.

Angola’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (Ministério do Ensino Superior, Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, or MESCTI) told University World News in a note that a future presidential decree will approve a training strategy that will prioritise the creation of new courses in public and private institutions in these broad subject areas. However, it did not say when this order will be made and when the new courses will be created.

This will build on policies within Angola’s National Development Plan 2023-27, or NDP, which stresses curriculum transformation to increase the focus on STEAM (STEM plus the arts) areas and meet the demands of the job market.

“The country needs trained professionals on a variety of fronts to respond to its multiple social and economic challenges, from training in education, health, economics and sustainable development, without forgetting social areas such as sociology, anthropology, law, psychology, urban planning and land-use planning,” said MESCTI.

The ministry’s note said such investment in STEAM subjects would promote innovation and technological development; reduce dependence on traditional sectors [oil and gas]; improve the quality of higher education; encourage scientific research; train professionals to face global challenges such as climate change; align the country with global trends, strengthening its position in regional and international markets; and boost Angolans’ quality of life.

The ministry highlighted that trained higher education professionals are especially needed for Angola’s energy, water, health, telecommunications, agriculture, manufacturing, information technology and environmental sectors.

More quality and modernisation

Another element of future reforms, said the ministry, was to digitise Angola’s higher education system, boosting innovation, applied scientific research and training professionals in strategic technological topics.

The NDP also highlights this, citing the creation of a National Research and Education Network, which would promote digital transformation within the Angolan higher education sector.

Said the ministry: “This Angolan government initiative is a milestone in advancing digital transformation in higher education and paves the way for distance learning, collaborative research, and Angola’s inclusion in international scientific networks.”

There are also plans to create technology-based business incubators in higher education institutions, said the ministry, and finish the Luanda Science and Technology Park. This 22,000 square-metre park, funded by public investment with 90% financed by the African Development Bank, is still under construction and will house business incubators. It is projected to be completed by October 2025.

The Angolan government’s Programme for Improving the Quality of Higher Education and Developing Scientific and Technological Research (Programa de melhoria da qualidade do ensino superior e desenvolvimento da investigação científica e tecnológica) 2025 budget was increased 195% year-on-year to Angolan kwanza AOA137.7 billion (about US$150 million).

Assessment of courses

Meanwhile, an ongoing assessment of existing Angolan higher education courses continues. 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, assessed 241 courses in STEM areas offered by 70 higher education institutions, but the results have not yet been released.

As per previous evaluations in other study areas, such assessments might lead to the suspension of degrees. For instance, since October last year (2024), students have been blocked from joining 84 health courses.

This will only increase demand for STEAM courses, which are few. According to MESCTI, just 10.6% of graduates (2,939 students) from Angola’s 106 existing higher education institutions, attended courses in the broader STEAM category of courses. Moreover, more diversity efforts are needed since women make up just 28.7% of Angola’s STEAM graduates.

Diversifying the economy

Professor Attiya Waris, a United Nations independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, told University World News that Angola, whose 38 million population is expanding fast, with one million births annually, needs to invest in upskilling.

As well as economic diversification, new skills are needed to keep the hydrocarbon sector on track. For instance, shipbuilding professionals are needed to aid offshore oil extraction and engineering, and other professionals are needed to maintain and build a transcontinental railway linking the Lobito port in Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia.

Moreover, more professionals understanding digitisation and digital systems are needed to modernise Angola’s finance and banking industry; and more linguists speaking neighbouring countries’ languages will help boost the economy, said Waris.

Meanwhile, more farming skills would tackle Angolan food insecurity, aided by de-mining professionals able to remove buried explosives present in one-third of the country following the civil war that ran between 1975 and 2002.

Attracting skilled diaspora returnees

Such changes may encourage members of Angola’s diaspora, numbered as at least 400,000, to return and help rebuild the country.

Emílio Ladislau, 33, an Angola expatriate PhD researcher in public policy at Portugal’s University of Aveiro (Universidade de Aveiro) is one such academic. He praised planned investment for boosting shortages in funding STEAM and agronomy education, which hindered Angola’s development.

However, he warned that Angolan students offered this choice may choose to focus on humanities and social sciences, while avoiding science, mathematics and technical courses, as they are deemed more demanding.

He also called on the government to reduce scholarships for Angolan students moving overseas for their higher education, as they often do not return, many using overseas courses as a means to secure foreign residency.

But the government also needs to make Angola a more enticing place to live in for ex-pats, he said.

“Some of them returned to Angola, but the country was not prepared, in reality, to receive these students,” noted Ladislau, adding that finding good employment can be difficult. Ladislau plans to return to Angola. However, protests in late July and early August (2025) against fuel price hikes left 30 dead, more than 200 injured and 1,500 detained, making him question: “Is it really worth it?”

Such problems might deter Angolan professionals, especially in STEM areas, from teaching at universities.

Angola must improve social and economic life and solve insecurity, hunger, low lecturer salaries, corruption and centralised wealth, among other problems, stressed Ladislau.

Furthermore, some Angolan researchers fear the country’s universities and colleges are not autonomous, with operational decisions made politically, making some research dangerous – for instance, for sociologists – deterring universities from hiring researchers whose views may be controversial, to avoid being on bad terms with the government, he added.

A MESCTI note said: “The challenge of talent retention is recognised globally, but Angola has advanced with reintegration measures, such as specific public tenders, giving foreign-trained professionals the opportunity to enter higher education institutions and research and development centres. The state has encouraged the creation of transition mechanisms for the private sector, fostering partnerships with companies.”

For instance, the launch of projects such as communications satellite AngoSat-2 has increased the demand for STEM professionals in the public and private sectors, said the ministry.

Academic freedom

The ministry said lecturers’ salaries were updated in 2024, offering supplementary remuneration of 100% of the base salary and additional subsidies for pedagogical innovation and laboratory work, for example.

Therefore, the lowest-paid lecturers earn almost five times more than the public workers earning the lowest salaries, it stressed.

As for the alleged lack of higher education autonomy, the ministry highlighted Presidential decree No 310/20, passed in December 2020 which updates a previous ‘Legal Framework for the Higher Education Subsystem’, arguing that it guarantees the autonomy of higher education institutions in scientific, pedagogical, cultural, disciplinary, administrative and financial domains, along with academic freedom, collegiality, democracy, plurality and peer reviews, stressing: “Criticism is accepted as a way to overcome the status quo and advance knowledge. Critical academic production is valued in Angolan higher education institutions, as long as it respects ethical and scientific principles.

“There is no record of anyone being ignored, separated or persecuted because of their political, religious or other beliefs, unless they have violated legal and ethical principles of organisational life or have engaged in unethical and antisocial practices,” it added.