*3.2.1 What to say about the Angolan higher education institutions leaders?*

It is known that the teaching and learning process quality depends on all stakeholders' quality in the education system, especially the various heads of departments and sections and especially the team leaders of the higher education institution.

One of the teachers and also manager said that "*the most of the higher education institutions leaders and managers in Angola were appointed for party convenience".* And for this reason, according to Simões et. al [9], many of them did not have any knowledge in terms of financial management, human resources management, and especially institutional planning management, not to mention that they did not have the habit of reporting accounts on a regular and periodic basis. "*And the Higher Education institutions efficient and effective management for which they were responsible was called into question*". On the other side, these educational institutions' managers' lack of management knowledge led to the trend to import management models from abroad, without an analysis of the local reality. And the same trend is verified within the country itself, in which policies and theories applied in the country's capital are imposed in the various provinces, without a study being carried out on the locality reality, as they are different realities, with economic and social dynamics completely different, leading to such policies failure.


**Table 1.** *Characterization of the students.*


#### **Table 2.**

*Characterization of the teachers*

"*Every public Higher Education institution manager appointed by the supervisory body, wanting it or not, was and had to be affiliated with the ruling party, and therefore any activity or project developed in the supposedly autonomous and independent academy, was actually dependent on the will and interest of actors outside the academic community itself*" (Manager and teacher). That is, they were always subordinated to the interests of higher bodies.

Currently, "*educational institution managers are elected by the academic community, which shows a great step taken toward the true academic and scientific freedom of Angolan Higher Education institutions*" (teacher). Therefore, the goal of the election is to obtain leaders who have greater ability to lead an institution responsible for the country's development, through policy implementation that provides greater quality in the teaching process, from high quality staff recruitment, and quality facilities and equipment, and mainly, high-quality graduate students supply to the job market, which is able to face global challenges. "*Although there is an "however,": educational institutions are totally dependent on the State Budget for their survival, and as a rule, managers end up submitting to the wishes of higher bodies for their own survival*<sup>1</sup> *. That is, few talk about what is really wrong to guarantee a bigger slice of the pie*" (teacher). Which ends up indicating a "masked" academic democracy.

For any educational institution's success, it is essential that the leader knows how to efficiently manage it. This leads to the need to have as a leader someone who knows how to correctly interpret the school concept and the basic needs for its functioning, identify the connection need of the education subsystem structures, strategic planning need, strong professionalization and specialization in management practices need, transparency and rigor need in the institutional funds' management, and regular accountability.

<sup>1</sup> Angolan people characteristic.
