Mozambique: Nyusi calls for mutual respect between health professionals and patients
Largest secondary school built after independence soon to rise in Mafambisse
12:04 CAT | 17 Jun 2022
Image via Escola Secundária de Mafambisse on Facebook
About 10,000 secondary school students from the district of Dondo, Sofala province, will from 2024, be studying in decent, modern facilities resilient to severe weather events, thanks to the new Mafambisse Secondary School.
The foundation stone for the largest secondary school built in the country since national independence was laid this Thursday at the administrative post of Mafambisse.
Valued at around 814 million meticais [US$12.7 million the school will be built in partnership with the government and financed by the Tzu Chi Foundation. The new facility will replace the school destroyed by Cyclone Idai in 2019.
The new Mafambisse Secondary School will have 58 classrooms, against 10 in the previous one. The classrooms will be divided between three floors, with 18 classrooms on the first, 20 on the second and another 20 on the third, which will increase its capacity to around 10,000 students in three shifts, including the night shift, against the current 6,000 students.
The new school will also have 18 toilets, five staff rooms, three computer rooms – two for students and one for teachers, Physics, Chemistry and Biology laboratories, an infirmary and a multipurpose sports field.
The new infrastructure will no doubt improve the quality of teaching, school principal Baltazar Zunguze said.
“There is no reason to doubt it, because, from the time we have better working conditions, we have to improve our performance in order to achieve our goals, in this case, to train the new man with quality.”
Students present at the ceremony were also jubilant.
“We are very happy because this will be the biggest and best school in the country, which we will be very proud of,” said student Tomás Fernando. “You see, since 2019, we have been studying in temporary conditions under trees and in tents, and the smallest change in temperature interrupts classes, contributed to our low pedagogical performance.”
Speaking on behalf of the Tzu Chi Foundation, Dino Foi said: “Our commitment is for this infrastructure to become a centre of excellence, where the community, parents, guardians, students and teachers come together to deliver a normal, but also humanitarian, education.”
The new Mafambisse Secondary School is designed to be resilient, capable of withstanding extreme events resulting from the harmful effects of climate change, as well as catering for an expanding school network.
”Currently, 117 classes in Sofala province are taught in the open. The opening of the Mafambisse General Secondary School will reduce this number by 116,” Minister of Education and Human Development Carmelita Namashulua said.
In turn, speaking on behalf of the head of state, Minister of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources Carlos Mesquita said that the school represented added value not only in Sofala, but for neighbouring provinces.
“This school will be an emblematic symbol of secondary education in the country due to its infrastructural dimension,” Mesquita said.
Minister Mesquita urged the Post-Cyclone Reconstruction Office, the financier of the project [Tzu Chi Foundation] and the provincial government to work together “in order to ensure that the work that starts here today has the necessary resilience to extreme weather events, and that it is completed within the expected 15-month time frame. For this to happen, we recommend strengthening coordination and supervision”.
By Francisco Raiva
Source: O País
Show comments
Also read
Leave a Reply
Be the First to Comment!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.