Speaking to Lusa, the secretary general of the Higher Education Teachers' Union (Sinpes, Eduardo Peres Alberto, said that the nationwide demonstration, which should start at 1:00 pm local time, appears as an "expression of dissatisfaction with the failure to comply with the memorandum of understanding by the Ministry of Higher Education and the Government of Angola".
"The union has done its part and the Government is not doing its part", he stressed. "For a Developed Angola Let's Work for the Quality of Higher Education" will be the motto of the university professors' demonstration, whose march in Luanda has already been communicated to the Provincial Police Command.
The march, in the capital, will start at the Faculty of Humanities of the Agostinho Neto University and should end in front of the Ministry of Finance, downtown.
Salary increases, better working conditions, payment of public debt and elections of the governing bodies of public higher education institutions are some of the demands of Angolan teachers on strike since January 3, 2022.
The secretary general of Sinpes recalls that the strike, for an indefinite period, also arises as a result of the "non-compliance" with the memorandum of understanding signed in November 2021 by the authorities.
A salary equivalent to 2000 dollars for the assistant professor intern and 5000 dollars for the full professor are the salary proposals of Sinpes to counteract the current "mediocre salaries".
Sinpes holds a general meeting on Friday and "challenges" the Government to present a salary counterproposal by tomorrow so that they can interpolate the strike: "Unfortunately we are taking so long due to lack of political will on the part of the Government, we are not in favor of canceling the year academic," he noted.
The Angolan Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation considered, last February, that the salary increase of the teachers, who were on strike, was a "delicate and complex process", guaranteeing, however, that actions were being taken at the Government level in this domain, as part of a more general approach to public administration salaries".
For the ministerial body, the exercise on the salary increase of university professors "is a delicate and complex process that requires considering a set of variables that guarantee the sustainability of any counter-proposal presented by the executive".
The ministry referred, at the time, that the memorandum of understanding "established deadlines for completing the actions that were in progress", noting that the declaration of the Sinpes strike "harms the implementation of the academic calendar".
Eduardo Peres Alberto also pointed out that all the negotiation rounds with the employer "failed" due to the lack of a salary counter-offer from the authorities.
At least two demonstrations, aimed at resuming classes in public higher education, were held last February, on the 5th and 19th, by students who asked for the intervention of the Angolan President, João Lourenço, to resolve the impasse.
