Maputo — Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has challenged the publicly owned Eduardo Mondlane and Lurio Universities (UEM and UNILúrio) to strengthen their capacity to produce knowledge based on scientific research, in order to meet the current challenges faced by the country.

Speaking on Wednesday, during the induction of Manuel Guilherme Júnior as the Vice-Chancellor of the UEM and Marcelino Liphola and Fred Nelson as the Deputy Vice-Chancellors of UniLúrio, the president also challenged both institutions to improve their position in the ranking of the major universities in the world, without turning them into mere distributers of diplomas.

"The key role of our university is to produce, transmit and disseminate knowledge", said Nyusi. "As in other countries, our greatest struggle is characterized by expansion, greater access and increasing the quality of education to meet society's demands. Therefore, our higher education institutions should not become places of mere distribution of sheets of paper, called diplomas".

According to the president, Guilherme Junior, as the new Vice-Chancellor of the UEM, the oldest institution of higher education in the country, has to work continuously taking into account that UEM is the "mother university" in Mozambique.

Nyusi stressed the need to create a cordial atmosphere of working relations, warning that "I do not want to receive audiences to manage conflicts or disagreements, I have too much else to do".

The Deputy Vice-Chancellors, he said, must reduce regional asymmetries in terms of access to higher education, bringing higher education closer to Mozambicans who live and work far from the major cities.

He also wanted them "to stimulate university research and extension activities, ensuring the modernization of the administrative-financial system, as well as making possible smart partnerships inside and outside the country".