Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique has 7,484 classes outdoors and there are 28,269 classrooms made of straw and clay in the country, according to data presented by the Ministry of Education at the meeting of the sector’s Coordinating Council.
“I want to appeal to school directors, community leaders and partners to find local solutions and eliminate outdoor classrooms” and stop having “children sitting on the ground, under trees”, said the Minister of Education, Carmelita Namashulua, quoted by local media after the opening of the meeting.
The Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Education has been held since Wednesday in Chidenguele, south of the country, a meeting that brings together various stakeholders in the area to take stock of activities in the country.
The creation of “favourable conditions” for study at the different levels of education should be a priority, she stressed.
A national programme is trying to change the situation by using wood, corrugated iron and other local materials, but the challenge is to reverse the underfunding for infrastructures.
At the opening of the Coordinating Council, the minister also complained about delays “in the construction and equipping of school infrastructures”.
Other problems persist in the sector, namely the high ratio of students per teacher, linked to another problem that requires more funding, the hiring of more teachers for public education.
The Mozambican government and eight cooperation partners renewed in July a memorandum of understanding aimed at improving the quality of education in the country.
Portugal, Germany, Canada, France, Finland, Italy, Ireland and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) contribute to the Education Sector Support Fund (FASE) and annually have disbursed US$80 million (68 million euros) for education in Mozambique, in an initiative created in 2002.
The new agreement signed this year aims to ensure access to quality education, implement and consolidate a monitoring, evaluation and learning system “aligned to the results-based plan”.
