Angolan Higher Education, Policy, and Leadership: Towards Transformative Leadership for Social Justice

Introduction

Angola is a country located in the southern hemisphere in Africa (Sub-Saharan Africa). Since independence in 1975 the country conducted its first population census in May 2014. The results of the population census remain unpublished. However, the United Nations Statistics Division (2014) indicates that in 2013 the population of Angola was estimated in 19.618 million inhabitants. Portuguese is the official language of the country. In terms of economy and revenues it is important to stress that the country is captive to oil and diamond revenues while the country grapples to rebuild its affected economy after almost 27 years of fratricide civil war. It is worth to stress that similar to most Sub-Saharan African countries higher education in Angola is a colonial legacy (De Carvalho, Kajibanga & Heimer, 2003; Altbach, 2006; Teferra & Altbach, 2004). Historically, the inception of tertiary education in Angola dates from 1958 with the launch of the Catholic higher education for Catholic priests both, in Luanda and Huambo (De Carvalho, Kajibanga & Heimer, 2003). According to De Carvalho et al., 2003, before independence higher education was a privilege reserved only to Portuguese people and their offspring.

This, undoubtedly points to the discriminatory and social stratifying role of higher in Angola in the colonial period. During the colonial period, tertiary education (tertiary education is used interchangeably with higher education), in Angola always served the colonial interest to maintain a social inequality and discrimination based mainly on race. The Settlement of Portuguese colonial system in Angola resulted in the creation of three racial groups, namely the natives, the White, and the mixed. After independence, however, the government declared education as a constitutional right and adopted free education policy for all levels of education. In this context, higher education in Angola was characterized with the existence of only one public university inherited from the colonial system and transformed first into Universidade de Angola (University of Angola) in 1979 under the rule of President Agostinho Neto, and currently Universidade Agostinho Neto after its first Vice-chancellor and the first president of then Republica Popular de Angola (Popular Republic of Angola). (See, De Carvalho, Kajibanga & Heimer, 2003, for a detailed account of the history of higher education in Angola).

Angola has improved economically (World Bank, 2012), while higher education still relatively underfunded. This chapter argues that there is a need to change the forms of leadership, policy, and practices. Connecting traditional transformative leadership theory with critical approaches may open a possibility for change and social transformation. Transformative theory in this paper refers not to the traditional concept of transformative leadership theory (Leithwood et al. 2002); it is believed that traditional conceptualization of leadership ignores the political and social justice dimensions of education. Transformative leadership in this discussion refers to a kind of leadership that challenges and questions the status quo and advocates for political activism and social justice (Apple, 2004, 2010; Shields, 2004; Brown, 2004, Giroux, 2006). The chapter is organized in two main sections. The first section entitled current issues provides a global picture of problems that affect Angolan higher education, namely the neoliberal arrangements and their impact for access, leadership, policy, and government’s efforts toward equity, quality of education; this section also provides a comparative overview in terms of funding, faculty, facilities, and academic freedom. The second main section presents alternative ideas for change in Angolan higher education. A transformative leadership and social justice education are presented as a possible alternative for higher education reform in Angola.