The priorities of the Angolan government in the education area are plenty. The reform initiated in the 90s, in terms of conception of structure and means to be utilized on manual programs and training of teachers. We began the implementation in 2004. This work is at its fifth year. We have introduced in terms of elementary and secondary education a greater part of classes. We have been implementing the education reform, gradually. Consequently, we could not implement everything at once.
We scheduled the inclusion of courses for the educational reform, progressively, as we establish conditions for integration of new courses. Presently, we have introduced from the first grade through the thirteenth grade, and the fifth and sixth grades are yet to be introduced.
The work being done shows that there is improvement in terms of successful students, their participation in class, and in terms of teachers engagement, mostly, where we established proper foundation to implement reform.
The elementary education is free, but it is not totally free at the secondary and higher levels. It is free because there is no fee to go to attend school, but there are other costs that need to be supported. For instance, uniform and books are bought by parents and guardians; thus it is a great contribution that society gives.
The present situation of education in Angola it is satisfactory because the results show a significant improvement. To integrate about four thousand members in the education system is a great success. This has not been frequent, it does not happen as much in the world, but happened in Angola. As H.E. the President of the Republic of Angola, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has said "Let us be in peace, then we will show what we are capable of doing in terms of harmony of minds and terms of social and economic accomplishment". In this aspect, the capacity of absorption of the system has increased and it is a great success. Problems of quality still persist in the education system, but we will continue to work on these matters.
It is necessary to educate so that people will have competency. We want to have an education system that can incorporate as many Angolans citizens as possible. We want there to be no more school exclusion, and that everybody willing to study can enrol at school. We think that by 2015 we can assure complete education.
Actually, more than six million students will be enrolled in the next school year throughout the country, and various levels of education, recently announced in Luanda, the Ministry of Education (MED). This increase of more than one million registered over the previous year reflects the improvements in this sector, since the restoration of peace in 2002, either at the level of literacy and primary and secondary education.
According to the Ministry of Education, the free and democratic education is one of the factors which enabled this rapid growth in the number of enrolment. Still the Ministry announced that since the year 2004 the growth rate of school increased 124, 25 per cent. The construction of 31,504 new classrooms and equipment of the old schools have contributed to this success.
