Mozambique: Army training young Mozambicans to replace SADC forces
CoM (file photo)
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Friday called for an education system capable of creating people who can think for themselves, and are able to produce alternatives and solutions for the problems that the country faces, and thus open the path to sustainable development.
Nyusi was speaking in the town of Macia, in the southern province of Gaza, at the ceremony officially launching the 2017 school year, held under the slogan “For Good Quality Education Leading to Human Development’.
“We want to train the men and women of tomorrow, who have the capacity to argue and to produce alternatives and solutions”, he declared.
He called for greater involvement by society at large, including parents and guardians, teachers, pupils and the managers of educational institutions, in the teaching and learning process, from primary school to higher education.
“Education is a task for all of us”, said Nyusi. “For the success of this system, the active participation of everyone is necessary. From school directors we expect a great deal of dedication and competence and the management of resources. Teachers must be assets to the system. They should be fathers, mothers, educators and friends to the pupils. Pupils should not miss school, and should not drop out from studying”.
He stressed the need to ensure the all-round development of the pupil as one of the main objectives of the education system. Schools must be “centres of knowledge and of acquisition of moral values and of knowledge. Only this will provide the quality we want”.
Looking back on 2016, Nyusi said education had been disrupted by various factors, including drought and floods in some areas, which “caused hunger and social instability, damaging the teaching-learning process”.
The clashes with gunmen of the rebel movement Renamo “left some regions uninhabited, scattered the population, and affected school organization. Many pupils had to drop out of school under these circumstances”.
Such factors, the President added, “were not predicted, and hindered the noble dream of Mozambicans to send their children to study”.
The Minister of Education, Conceita Sortane, told the ceremony that this year there are 2,528 primary and 539 secondary schools in the country, an increase of two per cent in the number of schools operating in 2016.
About 6.9 million pupils are enrolled in these schools, compared with 6.6 million last year. As for technical education, Sortane said there were now 181 technical schools, nine more than last year, and the number of pupils studying there had risen from 75,600 to 86,200.
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