Construction of a primary school in the central Angolan city of Cuito is 70 per cent complete, and the Chinese contractor is expected to finish the job this year, Angop reports.

The Angolan state-run news agency says the classrooms are being plumbed and wired, leaving two boarding houses for pupils and a canteen to be built.

China paid for the building work to begin, the report quotes Bié deputy governor for the technical services and infrastructures, José Fernando Tchatuvela, as saying.

The report says that after a five-year hiatus, the work resumed in March, this time backed by the Angolan government’s Regional Integrated Intervention Plan.

The school will have 24 classrooms, sufficient for 3,000 students in its first academic year, so helping to reduce the number of children that the Angolan education system cannot accommodate, Angop says.