Over half a century, around 2,700 Mozambican students have received scholarships from the Portuguese State to pursue their academic education, in a cooperation that spans different levels of education and that, this year, is again sending new scholarship holders to higher education institutions in Portugal.
The figures were presented in Maputo, during a meeting with students selected under the cooperation between Mozambique and Portugal. According to the news agency Lusa, 17 Mozambicans will benefit this year from scholarships awarded through the Camões Institute to attend bachelor's and master's courses at Portuguese universities.
“The Portuguese State has already awarded around 2,700 scholarships to Mozambican students,” revealed Portugal's ambassador in Maputo, Jorge Monteiro, as he took stock of the last five decades of cooperation, a period counted from Mozambique's independence.
The opportunities granted over these years have covered bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, doctorates and postdoctoral research, also focusing on areas considered relevant to the country's development needs.
Among the 17 students selected this year, eight will attend bachelor's courses and nine will move on to master's programmes. Seven of the latter will follow training in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
The scholarship holders come from the provinces of Maputo, Nampula, Niassa and Sofala and are scheduled to leave for Portugal on 28 September.
“This year we had 17 scholarship holders who will benefit from Camões Institute scholarships, of whom eight will attend bachelor's programmes in Portugal and nine will attend master's programmes,” said Jorge Monteiro.
The group will be spread across different Portuguese institutions, including the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, ISCTE, the Universidade da Beira Interior, the Universidade do Minho, the Universidade do Algarve and the Universidade de Évora.
More than a thousand applicants
The scholarships awarded through the Camões Institute represent only one of the routes available to Mozambican students who wish to pursue studies in Portugal. Another possibility is the special regime for access to Portuguese higher education.
Through this route, 292 students were placed this year, after a process that involved more than a thousand applicants across the country.
“Nationwide, we have placed around 292 students, out of a pool of more than a thousand applicants that we had this year,” revealed the director-general of the Scholarship Institute (IBE), Carla Coamba.
The official added that more than 187 students are expected to travel to Portugal to attend technical and vocational training, as part of the opportunities made available to Mozambican students.
Training geared to national needs
For some of the new scholarship holders, the journey represents not only the opportunity to deepen their knowledge, but also the possibility of returning with skills to address concrete problems in the country.
This is the case of Felizardo Marques, from Nampula, who will go to the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he will study for a master's in Medical Parasitology.
With around three years of experience teaching technical and vocational education and as a teaching assistant at Universidade Lúrio, Marques intends to deepen his knowledge in the areas of diagnosis, epidemiological surveillance and prevention of endemic and neglected diseases.
“The aim is to strengthen Mozambique's capacity in diagnosis, epidemiological surveillance and prevention of endemic and neglected diseases,” explained the student, pointing to malaria and parasitic diseases among the areas in which he intends to apply the knowledge he acquires.
Xabuca Santos António, also from Nampula, is leaving too. A pharmacist trained at Universidade Lúrio, he will take a master's in Biotechnology at the Universidade da Beira Interior, in Covilhã.
The scholarship holder began his professional career in 2022, in pharmaceutical management, and is now seeking to deepen his knowledge of biotechnology, with a particular interest in its applications in the health and agriculture sectors.
Among the areas he intends to explore is research into plants found in Mozambique, seeking to identify molecules with potential for pharmaceutical use. The student also expresses interest in developing solutions that could help make agricultural crops more drought-resistant.
Besides the training opportunities in Portugal, Portuguese cooperation includes scholarships for students at Mozambican educational institutions and at the Portuguese School of Mozambique, while also maintaining support for national students' access to Portuguese higher education.
