The meeting of the REGS International School, a platform for dialogue, exchange, integration and solidarity between postgraduate students, representatives of civil society organizations and public policy makers, kicked off on Monday 21st August at the Polytechnic University. 

The event is organized in partnership with the Knowledge Network on the Right to Education in the Global South (REGS) and Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM).

The meeting, which takes place under the slogan "The Right to Higher Education in the Global South: Horizons, Disputes and Meanings", aims to exchange knowledge and experience on the current situation of education systems in the Global South, the inequalities that affect students' access to and permanence in higher education, as well as the opportunities that exist for improvements.

It also aims to contribute to building networks of academics, social activists and public policy representatives interested in the democratization of higher education, from a perspective of social justice and equity.

The opening ceremony was led by the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Daniel Nivagara, who gave a presentation on "Access to Higher Education in Mozambique: An Analysis Based on Some Statistical Data". At the time, he considered that, despite the progress made, the country still needs to make efforts to progressively increase access to higher education, through policies or actions taken by the higher education institutions themselves.

These efforts, according to the government official, "must be accompanied by measures that increasingly ensure regional balance, gender balance and balance between different types of knowledge, with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as the continuous promotion of quality by institutions".

"The opening up to private sector participation in the creation of higher education institutions should be seen as an opportunity to extend private funding to higher education," added Daniel Nivagara, for whom higher education needs to shed its mercantilist vision in order to ensure its relevance in the national context.

The issue of quality and access to higher education is not just a concern in Mozambique, which is why the Polytechnic University has made efforts to extend its network of inter-university cooperation to the country, the region and other continents, as explained by its rector, Narciso Matos.

"We are interested in broadening our network of inter-university cooperation between our university, Mozambican universities and universities on other continents, which are working on the same problems that we are working on. We organized this event because we want to learn, to create links for future work between the various institutions. We want to learn from others what has been done by our colleagues," he said.

On the occasion, the scientific director of the REGS International School, Pablo Vommaro, defended the need to continue working, deepening, broadening and strengthening the right to education, given the prevalence of inequalities and threats to its massification and exercise.

"We are in a world where there are many conflicts, wars, educational, cultural and racial inequalities, among others. One of the tools for overcoming inequalities and building more democratic and egalitarian societies is to invest in extending and strengthening the right to education," he stressed.

Pablo Vommaro pointed to Latin America as an example, where "the right to education is not only threatened by a few repressive movements that don't want to extend the right to the whole of society. They want the right to education to be further reduced. We have experience of this in Latin America. There are repressive and authoritarian groups and governments that restrict rights instead of expanding them."

The event, which will take place until August 25, will be attended by professors, researchers, postgraduate students, government representatives, public policy makers, activists and members of civil society organizations from 12 Latin American countries, South Africa and the United States.