Mozambique: Private schools are ready to resume face-to-face classes

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Mozambique: Private schools are ready to resume face-to-face classes

3:34 CAT | 08 Oct 2020

Photo: O País

Private Education Forum representative Jorge Simões says that conditions exist for the resumption of face-to-face classes in private schools, except for private primary schools, which are still facing difficulties of various kinds.

Face-to-face classes have been suspended in all teaching subsystems since last March, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and resumed only this week, and not on October 1st, as previously declared by the government.

All private (secondary) schools were able to resume classes and function normally, Simões said, adding that water supply, the cleaning of bathrooms, and other conditions allowing classes to run without the risk of coronavirus contagion had been assured.

In secondary education, most schools resorted to online classes during the period of the State of Emergency, which ended last September 6th. Indeed, Simões said that private secondary schools had never stopped teaching, and their school term would therefore end in October.

The guest of “Manhã Informativa” pointed out that, in private schools, there would be no automatic passage to the next grade (at secondary level), as announced by the Ministry of Education and Human Development, explaining that “Classes will take place according to the general programme until February 2021”.

Simões said that some private primary education establishments had accumulated debts and suffered losses because parents and guardians had not paid tuition fees during the suspension of face-to-face classes, leaving teachers and other workers in these institutions without a salary.

“Most [private] primary schools have, in fact, experienced many difficulties,” he said. In relation to online classes, children often needed to be accompanied by an adult, which was not always possible because parents work.

Some private primary schools face serious difficulties to return to teaching this year. “There are problems with workers, with teachers and with the courts. Debts accumulated in the Ministry of Labour. They did not pay wages and were also left without the financial means for the installation of washbasins and the improvement of bathrooms required. But at this moment, each one is looking at how to carry out [these changes],” Simões said.

Source: O País