According to the 2022/2023 Education Statistical Yearbook, published by the National Institute of Statistics and prepared by the Office of Studies, Planning and Statistics (GEPE) of the Ministry of Education, a total of 8,800,047 students were enrolled in the 2022/2023 academic year, 3.8 percent more than in the previous academic year, with primary education having the largest number of students (61.2 percent of the total, more than 5 million children).
As regards the distribution by educational level, 824,628 students were enrolled in the Beginners class, 5,383,867 in Primary Education, 1,631,988 in the First Cycle of Secondary Education and 959,564 in the Second Cycle of Secondary Education, according to the document consulted by Lusa.
The yearbook notes a "clear concentration of students" enrolled in non-higher education in Angola in the provinces of Luanda, Benguela, Huambo, Huíla, Uíge, Bié, Cuanza Sul and Malanje, which absorbed 75.4 percent of the total number of students, with the remainder distributed across ten other provinces.
In that year, Angola had 12,967 schools, the majority of which were public schools (8,666 schools), concentrated mainly in eight provinces: Luanda, Huíla, Benguela, Huambo, Bié, Uíge, Malanje and Cuanza Sul.
There were 8,261 schools providing primary education, with 62,395 classrooms, out of a total of 107,962 classrooms in operation.
Of the total number of primary schools, with 109,142 classes, 11,849 had outdoor classes (10.9 percent).
Luanda, with zero children outdoors, was the exception among the provinces, while Cunene (38.3 percent) and Huíla (23.2 percent) were the ones with the most students outside the classroom, according to the yearbook consulted by Lusa.
In the case of the first cycle of secondary education, there were only 838 outdoor classes (1.4 percent of the total) and a residual percentage of 0.12 percent in the second cycle (33 classes out of a total of 26,416).
The data also reveal an insufficient number of teachers for the students, since the 205,784 teachers who taught in the 2022/2023 year, concentrated mainly in primary education (47 percent), had an average of 40 students.
The ratio was higher in primary education (56 students per teacher), falling to 45 students in the beginners' class and dropping significantly in the first cycle of secondary education (29 students) and in the second cycle (27 students).
In terms of performance, beginners' students had the highest pass rate (90 percent), followed by primary education (75 percent of students passed), figures that decreased in the following cycles of learning (72 percent in the first cycle and 70 percent in the second cycle).
The completion rate was also lower the higher the level of education, with 58 percent of students completing primary education, 44 percent completing the first cycle and only 12 percent completing the second cycle.
