Universidade Eduardo Mondlane

MOZAMBIQUE’S FIRST university – the General Studies University – was founded in 1962, and acquired full university status six years later as the University of Lourenco Marques. A year after independence in 1975, the name was changed again, this time to Eduardo Mondlane University to honour Frelimo’s assassinated first president. For several decades (1962 – 1986) it was Mozambique’s only university, and it remains the country’s most comprehensive.

Teaching and research is undertaken in 13 schools and faculties. There are faculties of Agriculture and Forestry; Veterinary Science; Arts and Social Sciences; Engineering; Law; Science; and Economics. The special schools cover the following specialities: Medicine, Architecture; Education; Hospitality and Tourism; Communication and Arts; and Marine and Coastal Sciences. Over eleven hundred academics and researchers staff these faculties and schools. Of these, 189 have doctorates – a remarkable fact, since at independence not a single Mozambican in the country possessed this degree. International linkages – and credibility – continue to increase. Two examples must suffice.

The School of Marine and Coastal Services has been built around a UNESCO Chair of marine sciences and oceanography that was established in 1999. The idea was to build teaching and research capacity in the marine sciences in a country with a 2 500-kilometre coastline, and to encourage a multidisciplinary approach to the management of marine resources in Mozambique and the region. Students learn not only how the ocean functions as a natural system, but also how to utilise and sustain its resources for economic development and social welfare.

Working with a United Nations agency with regional offices in Johannesburg, the university’s Faculty of Economics now offers courses in the economics of HIV and Aids. The courses are intended for teachers and lecturers from other education institutions, and are supported by a Mozambican government committed to the goals of universal access to
prevention, treatment and impact mitigation.