Mozambique’s Ministry of Education and Human Development has started to distribute 12,000 school desks among the critical schools in the country, the ministry said on Friday.
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So far, the provinces in serious shortage of school desks are Zambezia in central Mozambique and Gaza province in southern Mozambique. The two provinces are the ones highly affected by floods in a regular basis, one of the reasons that could be behind the lack of school desks.
The other reasons is the new enrollments the education system registration every year, estimated at 300,000, which is always beyond the system’s capacity to accommodate, leaving children at school age sitting at home.
The Ministry of Education witnessed on Thursday the distribution of 150 school desks to a primary school out of the 2, 000 school desks allocated to Gaza province and the Minister, Jorge Ferrao, took the opportunity to thank different contributors from individuals to private and public companies that have embraced the movement.
“We are pleased with the involvement of the society in this movement, from families and companies that are contributing, this means that Mozambicans understand that they have to be the first to help themselves to solve their own issues,” said the minister.
Despite the long way to go, with the current deficit at nearly 800,000 school desks for the whole country, the minister is motivated and hopeful of a significant reduction of the deficit.
The Education Ministry initiated a number of campaigns aimed at identifying the issues behind low quality of education, particularly in the public sector. And in a regular basis, talks are held bringing together different stakeholders to brainstorm on solutions to the matter.
Poor infrastructures, low wages for the teachers, inefficient teachers training programs are among the reasons that need to be addressed by the Education Ministry, to change the current criticized education system, where pupils reach high degrees but with serious writing and mathematics issues. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
