Education

Issue overview

Children are celebrating carnaval in their school class

Angola is still far from meeting the goal of universal quality primary education. The prolonged civil conflict left the Angolan educational sector in a state of disarray. Between 1992 and 1996 alone, the war destroyed more than 1,500 classrooms. The country faces the huge challenge of raising the number of children in primary school from an estimated 2.1 million in 2003 to 5 million by 2015, in order to achieve universal primary education—while keeping up with the rapid growth of the school-age population.

Institutional and systemic strengthening of the education sector and related capacity building are a pre-requisite to take on this challenge. Currently, strategic medium and long-term planning for the sector is seriously constrained by the lack of valid quantitative and qualitative information and integrated programming by all actors working in the sector. A functional Education Management Information System is not yet in place, qualitative research has been very limited during recent years and co-ordination mechanisms are emerging but need to be more inclusive of all partners.

The 2001 UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) showed that only 56 per cent of children of primary school age attend the first level of basic education (Grades 1-4) with clear disparities by gender and socio-economic groups. Although enrolment figures for 2002 and 2003 suggest a trend of increase in enrolment, a large number of Angolan children are still deprived of their right to quality education. At present, it is estimated that at least one million primary school age children are out of school, the majority of them being girls.

Multiple challenges

Key reasons for children not enrolling and attending school are a mix of supply and demand related factors:

• a weak institutional system in terms of structure, information and resources
• low budget allocations for the education sector
• weak coordination of all actors, hindering effective allocation of already scarce resources;
• direct and indirect costs of education (e.g. ‘informal’ fees, material costs, opportunity costs);
• a lack of adequate school infrastructures, including poor water and sanitation facilities;
• a lack of basic school materials and teaching and learning materials;
• a lack of teachers, in particular in remote and rural areas;
• overcrowded and multi-age classroom groups

Official data from the Ministry of Education for the 2002 school year suggest that the proportion of girls in the total enrolment is less than 40% nationwide, while it is considerably lower in some provinces, such as in Huambo (23%). The 2001 MICS confirmed the strong correlation between women’s education and the increased vulnerability of both mothers and children to a range of life-threatening conditions.

These factors are enforced by poorly qualified and trained teachers and impact not only on enrolment and attendance but also on the quality of education and learning outcome. Although a system of measuring learning achievement and student competencies is not in place in Angola, a range of findings indicate that quality of education and consequently learning outcome in general is poor.

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