Deadline ends tomorrow and only 43 per cent of pupils were enrolled for first grade – Mozambique

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Deadline ends tomorrow and only 43 per cent of pupils were enrolled for first grade – Mozambique

6:56 CAT | 29 Dec 2016

O País

According to the Mozambican Ministry of Education, only 43 per cent of the pupils expected to enrol for the first grade of primary education in the 2017 school year have done so, and the deadline is Friday.

The spokesperson for the Ministry, Ivan Collinson, told a Maputo press conference on Thursday that enrolment began in October and should end on 30 December. But the enrolment figure is alarmingly low.

About 1.3 million children who celebrate their sixth birthday in 2017 were expected to enroll for first grade, but so far only 590,228 have been enrolled.

Collinson noted that it has been habitual for parents and guardians to leave enrolling their children to the last moment. “But next year things are going to be different, because classes are starting earlier”, he warned.

In the past, the school year has begun in February. But the 2017 school year is scheduled to start on 20 January. The change is because of the General Population Census due to be held in August. Since the census brigades will consist largely of teachers and of older students, the education system will largely shut down during the census period, and, in order to compensate for this, classes will start a fortnight earlier than usual.

Collinson admitted that the Ministry may be obliged to extend the deadline for enrolment. But he insisted that parents should take enrolment seriously, and that the classes would indeed begin on 20 January.

The best enrolment figure came from Maputo City, with 76.4 per cent of the target enrolled. The worst figure was from the northernmost province of Niassa, where only 25.7 per cent of the children eligible for entering first grade have been enrolled.

On a more positive note, Collinson said that the final exams, held from 14 November to 16 December, had proved largely positive. They covered 3.3 million pupils, in 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th and 12th grades, as well as students in the literacy and adult education sub-system.

In the lower grades there had been substantial improvements. The second grade pass rate was 80 per cent compared with 72.1 per cent last year. In the fifth and seventh grade final exams, the pass rates were 77 and 80.1 per cent, compared with 70.5 and 70.8 per cent in 2015.

As for the secondary school exams, the pass rate in the first sitting was poor – but much better than in 2015. In 10th grade, 37 per cent passed, as opposed to 20.4 per cent in 2015, while in 12th grade the pass rate was 40.1 per cent, compared with 22.9 per cent last year.

“It is important to be clear that these are preliminary figures, because there is still the second sitting of the 10th and 12th grade exams”, said Collinson.

Source: AIM