According to the Secretary of State for Higher Education, Eugénio Alves da Silva, the courses "no longer respond from the point of view of profile and from the point of view of employability to the needs of the education system".
Pedagogical higher education institutions, he stressed, aim to train teachers and staff for teaching: "Now a pedagogue, in addition to teaching pedagogy classes in pedagogical secondary education, then he doesn't know how to do anything else".
"He doesn't know how to teach primary education, in childhood education, he doesn't have the competence to teach any other subject and, therefore, they no longer have a market," stated Eugénio Alves da Silva at a press conference.
Teachers trained in these courses, he explained, are allocated to pedagogical secondary education to train teachers, but the pedagogical secondary education provided in teacher education schools "is also in the process of discontinuation".
"Because from 2027 onwards, there will no longer be training for secondary-level teachers and, therefore, these schools will gradually disappear and, therefore, the needs of the education system will reduce," he said.
Angola currently has 93 legally recognized higher education institutions, 29 public and 64 private. Three new public universities will be part of this teaching subsystem from the academic year 2021/2022.
The pedagogy course is taught in 25 higher education institutions, the psychology course is taught in 35 institutions and the philosophy course in three public and private institutions.
According to the Secretary of State for Higher Education, the three courses for teacher training are "saturated", stating that the public and private resources spent there will be used "to train teachers in the areas where they are needed".
"And in addition to discontinuation, we suggest a complementary measure, which is to replace these courses with more useful ones, childhood education and primary education, so that second and third year students can transition to one of these courses and those at the end of the year they finish the course," he explained.
Applications for academic year 2021/2022 began on Monday and "no candidates will be registered" for courses in pedagogy, psychology and philosophy for teacher education.
Courses in psychology and philosophy, he noted, "will continue to exist in institutions that train psychologists and philosophers" and there will be a "discontinuation of courses that train professors of pedagogy, psychology and philosophy."
The psychology course is taught in 74 of the 93 higher education institutions operating in Angola.
The preparation for academic year 2021/2022, from the legal framework, the process of creating higher education institutions, entrance exams and discontinuation of courses, was the motto of the press conference that took place at the MESCTI headquarters, in Luanda.
