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Angola’s pre-1975 educational system was open to all races, without quotas. Demographically, most of the 350,000 whites lived in the cities and railroad towns they built in Angola since 1498 (Luanda 1576, Benguela 1617, Silva Porto 1750, Mossamedes 1840, Lobito 1843, Nova Lisboa/Huambo 1912), and blacks, who also arrived in the last 500 years, from the distant north, lived in the more traditionally rural tribal areas (where many missions provided education in mission schools, see examples above). Every one of Angola’s 18 district capitals offered primary and secondary education. Universities and their campuses were found in population centres like the capital Luanda, and cities like Benguela, Lubango and Cabinda.
Elementary school (Escola Primaria) starting at at age 7 consisted of 4yrs plus 1yr prep to determine which secondary school to follow.
Vocational school was for those who did not take the 1yr prep year and exam. They went to a 4yr vocational school (Escola Pratica e Comercio, or Comercio e Industrial) to learn useful commercial skills or a trade, prior to on the job training and apprenticeships.
Secondary school (Lyçeu) was for those who passed the 1yr prep year at the end of primary school. They went to a secondary matriculation school lasting 7 yrs (consisting of 2yrs general ed, then 3 yrs with nine subjects which all had to be passed (4 letters plus 5 sciences), and the 2 last yrs specialization, choosing from seven groups of six subjects each, to qualify for university.
Conversely, one could choose to take the entrance exam to a Technical Institute which produced Angola's technical specialists, with the Universities producing Angola's engineers, who worked in industry, airports, railways, mining, (veterinary) medicine, forestry & agronomy (as major exporter of bananas, sugercane, sisal, and 4th largest exporter of coffee), hydro-electric dams, and since the early 1960's, the offshore oil industry.
Post-script 1975, the end: Most of the whites fleeing for their lives, many leaving everything behind, at the violent Soviet take-over of prosperous Angola in 1975, as happened in countries like Congo & Mozambique, and later Zimbabwe & South Africa, the Angolan whites were accused of 'robbing the country of their expertise' (as socialism always seems to require capitalist paymasters). Once in Portugal, adding insult to injury, destitute refugees, aka 'retornados', were blamed during the next 20 years for Portugal's subsequent decline, and the socialist government's cowardly abandonment of 350,000 Angolans, including Mario Soares' complete mismanagement of the situation, sadly leaving the European community taxpayers to bail Portugal out!
Meanwhile, Angola's new masters, the Marxist Russians and Chinese, while condemning black people to civil wars, inevitable corruption and abject poverty, proceeded to enrich and arm themselves with the spoils of their African armed revolutions in one of the greatest illegal transfers of wealth, needed to sustain their internally weak communist regimes. Meanwhile, the new Angola, once an enterprising society of well-educated people, now depends for 90% of its income on the sale of oil.
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