Mozambique: Face-to-face primary school classes not likely to resume this year – A Verdade

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Mozambique: Face-to-face primary school classes not likely to resume this year – A Verdade

4:00 CAT | 22 Jul 2020

Photo: A Verdade

@Verdade has learned that the 3.5 billion meticais provided by the government are just to rehabilitate the little over 300 schools that teach Grade 12 classes.

The phased resumption of face-to-face classes in Mozambique announced by the President of the Republic on the 28th of June has been postponed sine die. Grade 12 classes will not now resume next Monday (27), as had been determined by the Council of Ministers.

“Since Tuesday of last week, the inspection of 171 schools began. Teams led by the deputy minister went to all the provinces in order to verify the declared conditions of the schools selected,” the Director of Infrastructure and School Equipment at the Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH) explained.

Filipe Nguenha said that “the work we are doing will not dictate the resumption of classes; our task is restoring what is damaged in schools. It is up to the Ministry of Education to carry out verification, in compliance with guidelines from the Ministry of Health”.

Nguenha.av_ — *Filipe Nguenha. [Photo: @Verdade]*

Speaking at a press conference this Tuesday (21) Nguenha said that the 3.5 billion meticais provided by the government would cover the supply of running water in the 352 schools that teach Grade 12.

“Of the 667 schools, only 332 teach Grade 12. The others teach up to Grade 10, and are in the second phase, which includes primary schools. Right now, we are carrying out a survey of all primary schools, to determine the degree of rehabilitation needed and the cost of the second phase,” he said. “In primary education, we are now beginning a survey of conditions in all provinces, for the same exercise to be carried out, that is, to quantify works and estimate costs,” he explained.

School works by direct award so as to finish “before the end of the year”

“After the works are completed, the verification and certification phase is entered. If we conclude that the school has a positive intervention and verification, then it is in a position to move forward. We are not saying that, in three months, we will have our schools ready to be handed over to the certification and validation commission to advance to [teaching] classes,” Nguenha said.

During the joint press conference in Maputo, the National Director of Water Supply and Sanitation announced that these works would be implemented by direct award. “In order to finish before the end of the year, we will have to start these works as soon as possible,” he said, underlining that the holding of public tenders would push the start of the rehabilitation of 332 secondary schools to 2021.

“What I can assure you is that the work will start as soon as possible,” Nilton Trindade declared, without offering any precise date. “It will depend on how the evaluation process leading to the signing of the contracts by direct award will be carried out. Everything is being done to ensure that these contracts are signed in July, and then the mechanisms for the mobilisation of the companies to the construction sites will be defined.”

According to these Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources, and Education and Human Development positions, classes in Grade 12 schools will only start after October, and there is no prediction as to when the country’s 15,337 primary schools will have running water for preventing the spread of the new coronavirus.

By Adérito Caldeira

Source: A Verdade