Dental education and proportion of inhabitants by Dentist in Angola

Suzely Adas Saliba Moimaz,Nemre Adas Saliba,Marcial António Simão Songa,Tânia Adas Saliba

doi:10.33448/rsd-v10i4.14356

Suzely Adas Saliba Moimaz, Nemre Adas Saliba + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v10i4.14356

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Abstract

The objective was to verify the proportion of dentists in relation to the Angolan population, to undergraduate and graduate courses in dentistry, and to analyze the pedagogical projects of the existing courses. This is a descriptive, exploratory and documentary study that analyzed data on the population and the number of dentists in Angola, obtained through information from the National Statistics Institute and the Order of Doctors of Angola. An application for cell phones called “Qualificar”, made available by the Angolan government, was used to collect information about the existing courses. The websites of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation; National Institute for Evaluation, Accreditation and Recognition of Higher Education Studies in Angola; and the National Press were consulted to collect data related to higher education in Angola. Information on pedagogical projects was obtained directly from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Angola has 701 dentists registered for a population of 30,175,553 inhabitants, that is, a proportion of 1/43,460. Among the eighty existing HEIs, only ten were authorized by the government to offer undergraduate courses in dentistry: six were located in the country's capital and four were distributed in other provinces, with workload varying from 4,688 to 5,536 hours. It was concluded that of the seven academic regions in the country, 4 do not have courses in dentistry; the number of dentists is not compatible with the population of Angola; no HEI offered postgraduate courses in dentistry and there is no standardization of pedagogical projects among the existing undergraduate courses.

Highlights

The scarcity of Human Resources for Health (HRH) is a global concern, which is most acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where the magnitude of the problem has already reached critical levels
After considering the distance between the different provinces and the limited resources, the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were researched by the official webpages of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, the official page of the National Press, for the decrees authorizing the creation of undergraduate dentistry courses, published in Republic Diary
It is noted that only academic regions I, II and V have HEI with dentistry courses (Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

The scarcity of Human Resources for Health (HRH) is a global concern, which is most acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where the magnitude of the problem has already reached critical levels. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Thirty-six of the fifty-seven countries facing an HRH crisis are African. Three of the Portuguese-speaking African Countries (Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea Bissau) are among the most affected (Dussault, Fronteira, & World Health Organization, 2010). Developing countries are being encouraged by WHO and the World Federation of Dentistry, together with dental care organizations, and volunteers, to incorporate the basic oral hygiene package as a guiding framework for providing oral health services (Karim, Mascarenhas, & Dharamsi, 2008). In South Africa, undergraduate courses are taught through collaborations between the South African Department of Health and each university, which is akin to an academic-service partnership. A good health-care system depends on the abilities of the human resources that a part of the system.

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