“Still a challenge” – Namashulua on the quality of education in Mozambique

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“Still a challenge” – Namashulua on the quality of education in Mozambique

4:03 CAT | 28 Jul 2020

File photo: Miramar

In an interview with Mozambique Television (TVM) last Wednesday, Minister of Education and Human Development (MINEDH) Carmelita Namashulua was asked whether she was satisfied with the current quality of teaching. She replied that it still constituted a challenge.

“It is still a challenge. If we were satisfied, we would not be bringing up here the challenges of improving the conditions of the learning environment and monitoring teacher attendance,” Namashulua said.

In her explanation, Namashulua said that public school students performed as well as private school students, claiming that both were taught by the same teachers.

“What I can say is that leadership, perhaps, can create differences, in terms of managing the schools themselves. But to say that the quality of teaching is different, this is debatable, not least because the teachers who teach in private schools are the same ones who teach in public schools,” she said.

The education minister also said that the sector she heads was trying to “level up” the quality of education in Mozambique with other countries in the region, pointing, for example, to a reduction in the number of subjects in the first three grades of the National Education System, a decision that, in her view, would help students focus on the development of writing, reading and numeracy skills.

Regarding the payment of tuition fees, which was agitating parents and guardians during the state of emergency in which the head of state had suspended face-to-face classes, Namashulua said that the sector had been managing the situation. However, “the regulations that establish the relationship between the Ministry and private schools are limited only to methodological and pedagogical guidelines”.

“We did not involve ourselves in the administration of private schools, because we did not have the skills to do so effectively. What we did was to ask parents and guardians and schools to find a middle ground, where we even advocated mutual gains at this time. Meanwhile, as a regulatory body, we are working to improve the regulations, so that in the future, we have a basis for action,” Minister Namashulua explained.

The minister also said that the education sector would be unfair if it set a fee, because private schools have their own particularities and specificities. “The services that schools provide differ from one school to another, so, without legal provision, the Ministry of Education could act unjustly if it set a single fee,” she pointed out.

Minister Namashulua said that the education sector was working with the Ministries of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs; Finance; of Labour; and of Industry and Commerce, to create a legal provision regulating private schools.

By Marta Afonso

Source: Carta de Moçambique