Covid-19: Angolan Private Institutions declare bankruptcy if classes do not resume on July 13

Higher education: Angolan Private Institutions declare bankruptcy if classes do not resume on July 13

Just over 3 months later, without the tuition fees of the students, the institutions are already talking about bankruptcy. Regrettably, the government is not providing any financial assistance to the private sector in order to safeguard teachers' jobs. On the other hand,  the fault is also the poor management and the lack of vision on the part of the leaders of these same institutions, it is inadmissible that in less than a year the stock of these institutions become worthless.

How come an institution that raises more than 100 million a year, cannot survive a year without payments? Where did the money go? Is there no working capital? One thing for sure I know, if the Private Sector closes, the country will go into total chaos. 

TV news on this matter 

In recent times, higher education institutions have been announcing that engineering faculties are at risk of closing due to lack of teachers. A short time ago, Aline de Almeida the dean of the University Agostinho Neto reported that her staff has only two effective professors and 95% are collaborators who serve a universe of 200 to 300 students. Computer Engineering and Petroleum Engineering courses are the most affected. in addition, there is also a lack of teachers in mathematics and physics courses.

“There are professors already in age and length of service for retirement, but unfortunately, they are forced to remain there with them, as the university does not have the possibility of making new admissions”, she added. 

Furthermore, “there are serious problems with the infrastructures”, remembering that “the Faculty of Medicine never had its own facilities” and that “the [university] campus is yet to be concluded”.

These phenomena occurring in the universities of Angola are unacceptable. Angola is one of the countries leading the world with the highest unemployment rate, there are hundreds of highly qualified teachers and  young engineers trained abroad and inside the country who could occupy the teaching staff of these institutions. many of these professionals are unemployed, others are forced to change specialties and pick another career path in order to get a job to survive in this suffering country.

Unfortunately, State Universities prefer to close their courses rather than recruit new teachers.

It should be noted that the country have more than 4 million unemployed people. Large pockets of the population live in poverty without adequate access to basic services.

The shock of the new coronavirus

“The shock of the new coronavirus puts even more pressure on public finances in 2020’’, Angola in recession will have to pay 5 billion in foreign debt amortizations, with total interest payments increasing to more than 60 percent of government revenue. 

The country is suffering the consequences of lower oil prices and the impact of measures to combat the covid-19 pandemic, which has so far caused 284 people to become infected and 13 deaths from it.

No one wants to buy Angolan oil. Now the one who pays for our oil is not the one who buys,  we are the ones  who have to pay  them to buy it, because now the storage of oil is more expensive than the value of the oil itself. Sonangol is clogged with full storage and is begging abroad to buy it in order to be able to continue producing, but the countries that consume do not really want it, because their storage depots are also full.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased illiteracy, hunger, poverty and criminality including domestic violence. For example, a 24 years old man mercilessly raped a one year old baby. This cruel event shocked the country. 

An article by: Sofonie Dala