Africa-Press – Mozambique. The hand-over of the Samora Machel Secondary and Pre-University school in Beira city, rehabilitated following the destruction it suffered during the passage of Cyclone Idai in March, 2019, is imminent.
According to provincial Director of Education, Tomás Viageiro, an inspection of the project concluded that the conditions for the delivery of the public education establishment were met.
“There may still be some things which are not quite right, but the main work has already been done, and the school will be delivered at any time,” Viageiro said. Handover was scheduled for August, but this did not happen due to technical reasons, he added.
Viageiro acknowledged that the work had somewhat compromised the timely start of classes at the school, and that the school had therefore had to adapt in order to ensure that students were not left without classes.
Teachers had, for example, adopted distance learning techniques. Another strategy used was the alternation of students attending face-to-face classes and catch-up lessons.
The provincial Director of Education adjudged these strategies as effective, saying they had helped students and the sector itself, thereby avoiding delays in the school calendar.
He noted the rehabilitation and requalification works, in the amount of about 100 million meticais, had been financed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) under the intervention and supervision of the Post-Cyclone Reconstruction Office (GREPOC) and the management of the Sofala Provincial Directorate of Public Works and Housing.
Viageiro said that the conditions of the classrooms had been improved, and that measures aimed at avoiding contagion and apprehension in relation to Covid-19 had also been taken into account.
Several other schools in Beira, which are still in the process of rehabilitation, would also be delivered this year, Viageiro said. “We would like to reopen several [schools] at the same time – we are thinking about how such a ceremony would be possible,” he explained.
