Introduction [TJ]

5.1.2 Educational Background

The period between 1962 and 1974 is paraded as the one that laid foundations for a new education system and pedagogy in Mozambique.²⁰⁵ During that period, areas under the control of FRELIMO became known as “liberated zones”. It was mainly through experiences in these zones that FRELIMO came up with new concepts and principles, which formed the basis for an alternative curriculum of socialist orientation and a new pedagogy. Methods and programs in the alternative curriculum were geared towards replacing a colonial-capitalist, individualistic and competitive mentality with a revolutionary mentality based on the practice of collective work and study, democratic participation and the working out of new kinds of social relations between people.
Educational transformation in Mozambique was also heavily influenced by the Beira Seminar held in January 1975. Following the seminar, preliminary changes were made to the curriculum. These included the (i) abolition of religion as a school subject; (ii) replacement of the history of Portugal with the history of Mozambique as a compulsory subject in 1975 for all levels of schooling; (iii) extension and standardization of physical education to include girls; (v) suspension of most colonial textbooks; (v) the training of new teachers, the “monitores” (teachers without formal teaching qualifications) and (vi) improvisation of new teaching methods. According to Cross (2000) most of the educational policy changes adopted at the Seminar were based on political grounds. There was no research undertaken nor was there a consideration of environmental factors, materials and human resources. As a result, attempts to implement the changes were problematic.
The nationalization of schools in 1975 led to a number of positive and negative experiences. On the positive side, there was an increase in the school population. On the other hand, there was a sharp drop in numbers of qualified teachers mainly because of the massive emigration of Portuguese settlers.²⁰⁶ For example, the number of learners in primary schools increased from 695 885 in 1974/75 to 1 276 500 in 1976, while the number of teachers increased from 10 281 to 15 000, which corresponded to a teacher/pupil ratio of 1:85 in 1976 from 1:67 in 1975. Staff shortages led to the recruitment of foreigners from various countries. This had its own problems because large sections of highly assimilated Mozambican elite saw the status of those “cooperantes” (co-operators) as economically and socially more desirable than their own status as citizens of the country. Consequently, skilled and semi-skilled Mozambicans renounced their citizenship and adopted Portuguese citizenship to be employed as cooperantes. The government retaliated by expelling them from the country and that exacerbated shortages of skilled people.
The period between 1988 and 1990 saw education in Mozambique being seriously disrupted by the war. The numbers of children in schools declined. It was estimated that 59% of children between the ages of seven and ten years were not in school. The quality of education declined as the number of learning hours also decreased. As more people fled the countryside to the urban centers, education institutions, including the Ministry of Education and provincial departments could not contain the problem. Their activities became limited to the main centers of Maputo, Xai-Xai, Inhambane, Beira, Quelimane, Tete, Nampula, Lichinga and Cabo Delgado. Rural areas became depopulated as people migrated to the urban centers.²⁰⁷
In 1987, the World Bank introduced a Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in Mozambique. The effects of SAPs in various developing countries have been well documented. In Mozambique, the program led to the abolition of a number of socialist strategies to give way to private initiatives. It also privileged the expansion of basic education and selective expansion of post secondary schooling. It led to the devaluation of the metical (Mozambican currency). This had an effect on the working conditions of teachers, which was made worse by the fact that the education budget had been decreasing since about 1980. Salaries of teachers declined and so did their motivation. The dissatisfaction in the teaching profession led to nation-wide protests and strikes of teachers in early 1990.²⁰⁸
Following the 1990 conference on Education for All in Jontiem, Thailand, the Mozambique government started a national review of the education sector and established a forum for dialogue with donors to look into ways of streamlining the aid programs and ensuring that they operated within the national program. In 1992, clarification about the structure of national education system was spelt out. The Mozambican education system was structured around three bands:

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  Pre-school education catered for children under the age of six;
  
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  School education included general, professional, technical and higher education; and
  
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  Extra-school education covered educational activities that took place outside formal education.
  

In this way the process of rebuilding the education system was started and some of the priorities included: expanding the school infrastructure that had been badly affected by the war, and improving the quality of and building the capacity in strategic planning and management.

Portuguese is the official language of instruction (though it is mother tongue for less than 6.5% of its population).²⁰⁹ At secondary schools, English and French are taught as subjects, and increasingly English is gaining prominence since Mozambique joined the Commonwealth. There are about 13 African languages spoken in Mozambique. The Ministry of Education has recently decided to introduce the use of the mother tongue in initial grades on an optional and selective basis.