Normalization and Asymmetries

The publication of Decrees No. 43/2023 and 91/2023 (SINAQES) marks a turning point in the regulation of Mozambican higher education, establishing rigorous national standards for quality, accreditation, and operation. This study stems from a fundamental contradiction: while the national normative framework becomes uniform and demands excellence, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) established in peripheral provinces, such as Niassa, operate under the weight of deep historical, geographical, and socio-economic asymmetries.The analysis focuses on Niassa Province, the site of an "indiscriminate" expansion following Law No. 1/93, which generated organic units with chronic structural deficits. Through an in-depth case study at the Faculty of Agrarian Sciences of Lúrio University (Uni Lúrio - FCA), this work investigates the gap between regulatory requirements and operational viability, arguing that a rigid and undifferentiated application of the new law can transform a quality instrument into a mechanism of territorial exclusion, penalizing the very regions the system originally intended to develop.