Mozambique: ONP says teachers are target of a smear campaign

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Mozambique: ONP says teachers are target of a smear campaign

2:15 CAT | 05 Aug 2022

Photo: O País

The National Teachers’ Organisation (ONP) acknowledges that there are spelling, content and calculation errors in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th Grade quarterly tests in Maputo and Zambézia, but maintains that there is also an intention to smear teachers and denigrate their work.

READ: Errors in end-of-term tests in Maputo City and Zambézia province – O País

The National Teachers’ Organisation reacted this Thursday to the appearance of faulty content in students’ test forms, calling the errors simply “work accidents”.

“We must agree that everyone who works makes mistakes, unlike those who don’t work, who are only concerned with criticising and collecting what’s wrong to publish it. Why don’t they do the opposite: praise the work that teachers are doing in schools, under the difficult conditions to which they are subjected?” asked ONP secretary general Teodoro Muidumbe.

Muidumbe acknowledges that mistakes were made by those charged with the final verification of the tests, but insisted that there are people whose intention is to smear the teachers generally.

“The person who photographed these test forms has already found them with the mistakes underlined, which means that he or she took drafts to publicise. The person who highlighted the errors is the person responsible for the correction, who made the highlight for later correction,” Muidumbe remarked, adding that these errors would have no impact on the quality of the marking.

The tests currently underway in Mozambique mark the end of the second term of the current academic year, with students going on vacation after the next week. The third and last term begins on 16 August and ends on 18 November.

Final exams take place from 14 to 22 November in the primary education sector and from 28 November to 9 December in secondary education.

By Inalcídio Uamusse

Source: O País