Angola’s Ministry of Education has issued an order requiring public and private schools, from primary through to secondary level, to enrol children who do not yet have identity documents while these are awaiting issue by the relevant authorities.
The measure comes after many school-age children arrived at schools to register for the new school year without any documents. The stated aim is to ensure that a lack of papers does not increase the number of citizens outside the education system. According to official figures, around 60% of Angolan children were not registered in 2024.
Schools are also tasked with raising families’ awareness of the importance of civil registration and the identity card (Bilhete de Identidade), and with drawing up a list of pupils without documents by the end of October.
That list will be sent to the identification and registry services of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, whose staff will travel to the schools to register the children.
