The unintended consequences of liberalization and austerity on higher education in Mozambique

Abstract

Abstract Chronic shortages of resources to run the state have been a feature of Mozambique since the colonial period. Even before the adoption of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) in the late 1980s, conditions were austere due to the effects of Portuguese colonialism, a decade of liberation struggle, prolonged civil war and policy mistakes following independence in 1975. Drawing from archival research and oral accounts, this article analyses the impact of the liberalization of higher education in Mozambique. It explores the strategies adopted by intellectuals and academics to navigate reduced state support and donor conditionalities accompanying austerity measures from the late 1980s. It also highlights the paradoxical effects of austerity measures on fundraising, intellectual production, and the expansion of educational institutions. Austerity measures brought about by SAPs have forced universities and faculty to reinvent themselves by commercializing and privatizing higher education and seeking external funding for research. At the same time, scholars are now intellectually freer but more dependent on donors’ research agendas. Finally, the introduction of privately owned higher education institutions and the marketization of public institutions have increased divisions between the elites and the majority of Mozambicans who cannot afford to pay the fees charged.