Mozambique: Education Ministry to print school books domestically

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Mozambique: Education Ministry to print school books domestically

2:11 CAT | 17 Mar 2025

File photo: O País

Mozambican Education Minister Samaria Tovela has announced that the government is already negotiating with some Mozambican companies to print inside the country the school textbooks, which will be used in the country’s public education system.

In recent years, the Mozambican education system has been facing severe problems in the distribution of the textbooks. These troubles are related to the recruitment of incompetent people as coordinators and authors of the books, some of which, in 2022, contained gross errors in the subjects of Geography, Mathematics and History.

To avoid delays in distributing the books, the Mozambican Association of Printing Industries (AIGM) has been calling on the government to favour national printing firms through favourable public tenders focused on the existing capacities in the country, instead of prioritising foreign companies, especially those of Portuguese origin.

But although the Mozambican companies have the capacity to print the books, financing agencies insist on international tenders, which are always won by non-Mozambican companies.

Tovela, speaking to reporters on Sunday, in Maputo, on the sidelines of a ceremony marking the 52nd anniversary of the foundation of the Mozambican Women’s Organization (OMM), the women’s wing of the ruling Frelimo Party, guaranteed that the printing of textbooks inside Mozambique would begin this year.

“We are discussing with the national companies in order to have a cost that our state can bear. That’s the point. The discussion is really about having a tolerable cost. That’s our intention, that’s what we want”, saidTovela.

The minister explained that printing textbooks in the country is crucial for the 2026 school year, but some of them “will be printed here this year. That’s what we’re doing. What we want is for us to gradually have the capacity domstically, because it’s a huge amount.”

As for the distribution of textbooks in the current school year, Tovela said “already 87 per cent have been distributed. We’re going to distribute all the books by the end of March.”

She also said there are difficulties in access to some districts as a result of the passage of Cyclone Jude, which struck much of northern and central Mozambique last Monday and Tuesday.

“We have a problem, because of the cyclone we had in Nampula, which cut the roads”, she said. “We are trying to see how we, in coordination with the transport companies, can effectively finish the distribution”.

Source: AIM