Mozambique: Nampula to enrol more than 336,000 Grade 1 pupils

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Mozambique: Nampula to enrol more than 336,000 Grade 1 pupils

1:33 CAT | 02 Dec 2020

Photo: O País

The province of Nampula expects to enrol more than 336,867 Grade 1 pupils for the 2021 academic year. But, given the Covid-19 pandemic, parents and guardians are concerned about the health conditions in schools.

Tina Mussa has two six-year-old children who are due to start studying in the next academic year, and she decided to enrol her children in the 25 de Junho Primary School in the centre of Nampula. The process runs until February 26, 2021, but Tina likes to act quickly.

“What moved me to be one of the first people to enrol is not to lose my place,” she says. But the transmission and spread of the coronavirus in the country is one of the great fears among many parents and guardians. Tina sets her hopes on the health education of future students fitting them for the new normal.

“I am concerned with the issue of conditions [in schools], but as the main thing is to wash hands and wear a mask, everything is already provided and also given that, from the first month that we started hearing about this problem, we also started educating our children,” she notes.

The province of Nampula has 1,073 primary schools and, as in any part of the country, the toilets in many of them fail to meet the standards – a situation that the education authorities promise to change.

“We are a group of several elements and we are working on the subject. I refer to Public Works, Health and Education and we work together so that schools, especially those located in remote areas, have the minimum prescribed for the prevention of Covid-19,” Eusébio Coholia, from the Provincial Directorate of Education and Human Development in Nampula, says.

Of the total 1,073 primary schools, 851 have already been rehabilitated, while all secondary schools have re-opened their doors for Grades 10 and 12.

With regard to pupils among the displaced from Cabo Delgado now in Nampula, Coholia says that 165 Grade 7 children have been integrated, along with 122 from Grade 10 and 87 from Grade 12. Displaced students in grades without exams will get an automatic pass mark.

By Ricardo Machava

Source: O País