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Photos: Presidente Filipe Nyusi @NyusiConfioemti
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Saturday described teachers as figures of fundamental importance for the entire education system.
He was speaking to an audience of about 1,000 teachers at the Industrial and Commercial Institute in the northern city of Nampula, at the main ceremonies celebrating Mozambican Teachers’ Day, 12 October.
“For us, teachers are the basis of everything”, said Nyusi. “Schools are not just the four walls. Schools have to be managed, and so do the laboratories. We insist on this”.
“From this podium, I want to thank, in the name of all Mozambicans, the teachers for the professional stance they have shown during the past five years. They have given the best of themselves to provide knowledge and skills to our fellow citizens”, he stressed.
Nyusi pledged “to continue the reforms we have begun, in an incisive way, to solve the problems of the education sector, giving priority to the human person”.
“We want to continue moving towards universal and free access to basic education up to ninth grade, as I stated in my last State of the Nation Address”, said Nyusi. “We want to build more schools, invest in improving quality, and equip schools with laboratory equipment, libraries, and information and communication technologies in all the education sub-systems”.
He promised to work on continually reducing the pupil/teacher ratio “by investing in increasing the number of teachers and making better use of those that currently exist”. This drive would also involve improving the training of teachers and educational managers.
At a ceremony in Maputo, the general secretary of the teachers’ union (ONP), Francisco Nogueira, said the major challenge lay in implementing the decision taken at the ONP’s congress, held in August, to transform the ONP from a professional association into a trade union.
The Saturday’s ceremonies were held under the slogan “Unionising the ONP will guarantee social dialogue to improve the conditions of teachers”.
Nogueira said that shortly the ONP will be registered as a union so that it can begin negotiations with the government. He believed there are “common interests” shared by the ONP and the government in improving the quality of education and the working conditions of teachers.
The ONP claims 80,000 members throughout the country, in almost all Mozambican schools.
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