New appointees take office – Mozambique

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New appointees take office – Mozambique

8:37 CAT | 29 Nov 2016

Noticias

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday swore into office the new Education Minister, Conceita Sortane, and the Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Augusto de Sousa Fernando.

Also sworn in was Orlando Quilambo, for a second five year term as Vice-Chancellor of the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), and former education minister Jorge Ferrao, as the new Vice-Chancellor of the Pedagogic University (UP), the country’s largest institute of higher education.

Addressing the ceremony, Nyusi said he hoped the new leaders in these sectors would open an era of hope, despite the difficulties the country is passing through.

He described the Education Ministry as “the centre of government action and humanization of society at a time when the country is facing a decline in ethical values. Education cannot be just learning how to read and write, education must also train citizens morally”.

Nyusi called for an improvement in the quality of education in order to transform schools into bases for empowerment and skills, which would require “concrete actions aimed at concrete solutions”.

The President regarded the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy as vital, given the role of hydrocarbons and of electricity in the country’s economic development. It has been without a deputy minister since the beginning of 2015, and by appointing Fernando to this post, “we are strengthened the management of this area, which is a catalyst of the economy’.

As for the universities, Nyusi recognized that the UEM is undergoing enormous growth “but the challenge remains of transforming it into a laboratory producing solutions for the country’s problems”.

The UP, he added, has the task of guaranteeing degree level training for teachers, and ensuring that the changes it is undergoing will lead to “qualitative and quantitative growth, particularly in the postgraduate programmes”.

In brief statements to the press, Conceita Sortane said that the strategies for education have already been laid down, and she would continue to implement and consolidate them, concentrating particularly on improving the quality of education, through such measures as improving the teacher/pupil ratio.

Source: AIM / TVM