Mozambique’s Pedagogic University to be split into four

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Mozambique’s Pedagogic University to be split into four

7:03 CAT | 04 Sep 2017

O País

Mozambique’s largest institution of higher education, the Pedagogic University (UP), is to be split into four units, each enjoying the status of a separate university, the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Jorge Nhambiu, announced on Monday.

He was speaking at an extraordinary meeting of the National Higher Education Council (CNES), which is considering the draft statutes for the four new universities, named simply as UP-headquarters, UP-south, UP-centre and UP-north.

The CNES is also discussing a proposal to merge the Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI), with the Higher Institute of Public Administration (ISAP).

Nhambiu said that splitting the UP into four is part of a policy of decentralisation and improving university administration. He expected it to lead to an improvement in the quality of higher education.

Assuming the CNES regards the proposal positively it will then go to the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), which will issue decrees abolishing the existing UP and creating the four new universities.

“We are decentralising management”, said Nhambiu. “The current problem is that any UP activity in a province has to be approved in Maputo. All the basic documents are issued in Maputo. From the point of view of management, splitting the university up is advantageous”.

As for the longstanding demand to introduce a medicine course at the UP, Nhambiu told journalists the matter would merit attention, once the UP-South was set up, based on the parts of the current UP located in Gaza and Inhambane provinces.

“We didn’t want to go into this question in depth, because we saw it was premature”, explained the minister. “We thought that we had first to define the mission of the University and then look at the particular problems of each of the universities that are going to be set up”.

The CNES is an advisory body to the Council of Ministers that coordinates integrated planning of higher education.

Source: AIM