Mozambique: NGO criticises delay in distribution of Primary Education textbooks

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: NGO criticises delay in distribution of Primary Education textbooks

3:10 CAT | 06 Apr 2022

FILE PHOTO - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: CDD]

Mozambican non-governmental organisation the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) warned on Tuesday that thousands of Mozambican students would end the first quarter of the school year without having received their free textbooks, demanding an effective strategy to address this recurring problem.

Milhões de crianças vão terminar o primeiro trimestre sem livro escolar.

👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/LeRA7F5QoF

— CDD Moçambique (@CDD_Moz) April 5, 2022

“Out of a total of 16,947,600 textbooks planned for distribution in Primary Education, the government has so far made available only 1,064,872. […] Most children from the 1st to the 6th Grades will finish the first quarter of the school year without their free textbooks,” a CDD press release complains.

In addition to the delay, the CDD criticises the way in which the “few books” available were distributed, saying that the Ministry of Education and Human Development gave priority to schools in the main urban centres.

“The little more than one million manuals received by the Ministry of Education were distributed in the country’s main urban centres, a strategy that discriminates against the millions of rural pupils,” the CDD note adds.

The Ministry of Education and Human Development justifies the delay with the restrictions imposed after the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in India, where most of the books are printed, predicting that most of the school books will arrive in Mozambique this month.

Mozambique has a total of 13,337 public primary schools and 677 secondary schools, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Education and Human Development.

ALSO READ: Mozambique is short of 14 million free textbooks – RM report