COVID-19: MINEDH will not cancel school year, recommends “dialogue” on tuition fees between parents and private schools – Watch

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COVID-19: MINEDH will not cancel school year, recommends “dialogue” on tuition fees between parents and private schools – Watch

1:44 CAT | 18 May 2020

Photo: Miramar

The Mozambican Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH) said on Friday that parents and private schools should find a platform to talk about the dispute over tuition fees during the state of emergency.

Restrictions requiring the closure of schools have been in effect since March 23, and will persist at least until the end of May.

“MINEDH has encouraged parents and guardians of private school pupils to conduct a pleasant, frank and fair dialogue to resolve the dispute,” Gina Guibunda, spokesperson for the ministry overseeing the sector, told a press conference.

The ministry says that it is within its competence to “regulate aspects of a methodological and pedagogical nature” and that “it should not intervene in the setting of tuition fees” for students in private schools, given the “lack of normative instruments” for this purpose.

But the suspension of classes had led to some malaise regarding the payment of tuition fees.

As for the readjustment of the school calendar, MINEDH announced that it had created a work team to listen to the sector, while reiterating that it would not cancel the academic year. A team had been set up to analyse the conditions for the eventual recovery of classes lost as a result of Covid-19.

The government said it had devised a strategy to guarantee the continuity of classes at home through the Internet, radio and television, with the distribution of free worksheets and books.

The school year in Mozambique started in February with 8.4 million students in the public system, according to MINEDH, an increase of 4.7% over 2019.

About one million entered secondary school, while the majority were primary school students from the first to the seventh grade.