Angola’s Minister of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation Maria do Rosario Braganca led a delegation to Israel last week.
Her goal was to gather contacts and ideas to further her five-year plan to strengthen innovation and high-tech education in Angolan higher education.
The visitors were accompanied by Focus Education, the education arm of Herzliya-based international consulting and logistics firm Mitrelli Group, which specializes in long-term educational projects in collaboration with governments, academic institutions and private partners. Mitrelli has been working in Angola for a decade on large-scale infrastructure and development projects.
The minister and her delegation met with representatives of the Council of Higher Education in Israel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Hebrew University, Afeka College, the Technion, and Gordon College of Education. They toured Beersheva’s Carasso Science Park in a visit organized by Athena, a Mitrelli Group company promoting cultural development and sustainable tourism.
“I would like to learn from Israel how to advance our systems in Angola,” said Braganca, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Agostinho Neto University specializing in genetics.
“In particular, Israel has been developing education systems, from preschool to higher education, in order to fulfil the goal of having more than 50 percent of its population achieving a university degree. We can use this knowledge in our country, and it is also highly important for us to see how the theme of innovation is being developed so well in Israel,” she said.
Haim Taib, founder and president of the Mitrelli Group, said: “The visit aimed to provide the delegation an opportunity to get acquainted with the Israeli academic system and its comprehensive approach towards higher education, in order to strengthen connections and advance mutual interests between the two countries.”
