Improving access to education in Mozambique is a struggle, but determined parents, together with local and international NGOs, are working to ensure that resources designated for education reach their children. Nicole Johnston finds out how.
The war in Mozambique may have ended 18 years ago, but its legacy lives on in the classrooms of rural schools in Zambézia province.
This area most often makes headlines when the Zambezi River floods, but it is also the province that suffered most during the 16-year civil war because of the rebel strategy of targeting and destroying hospitals, schools and roads.
Here it is not unusual to have 100 children in a class, taught by teachers who have not finished high school themselves, with no toilets or running water. Exhausted teachers often run classes in three shifts, the first starting at 6.30am, and many schools do not possess any reading material apart from the children’s work books.
A battle parents are determined to win
Mozambique has made huge strides in improving access to basic education since the end of the civil war, but it is an uphill battle. For parents and teachers in rural towns and villages, this is a battle they are determined to win.
Each school, no matter how impoverished, has a school council elected by members of the community and dedicated to ensuring its children get a decent education. Schools in affluent cities would admire the zeal with which they approach this task: apathy is not an option here.
“This school was built by the community — they collected stones and made bricks to build the walls and then they lobbied government for the timber and iron sheets for the roof,” explains Pedro Namagila, director of the Errego Primary School in Ile.
But the lack of basic amenities is not the only challenge that the school council faces: ensuring children stay in school is a major concern, with about 60% of children dropping out before completing Grade 5. For families struggling to grow enough food to survive, every child in school is a pair of hands lost from the fields.
And as the HIV pandemic spreads, large numbers of children — mostly girls — drop out of school to work or care for sick relatives and younger siblings.
“If a child drops out, we will go and ask the family why,” says Ferraz Lugeira, chairperson of the school council. “If they say it is because they don’t have books or stationery we use money from a fund for orphaned and vulnerable children.”
No child turned away
This determination by parents that their children get a better chance in life than they have had is echoed at Namaripe Primary School near Gurue. The school is nestled against a backdrop of spectacular mountains and tea plantations, and is reached by a road that, even in a 4×4, makes getting there an ordeal. The children walk long distances to school, and often there is not enough space to accommodate them once they get there.
The province has a ratio of 91 pupils to each teacher, the distances are vast and the roads are bad or non-existent, making it difficult for the Education Department to deliver schoolbooks or do inspections.
Americo Vaela is the chairperson of the school council and is determined that no child be turned away. “Lots of children don’t come to school because we don’t have enough classrooms. So we build classrooms with thatch walls and roofs until we can make the bricks we need.”
“Each year we receive more and more students, so the school council will get together and figure out how many bricks each family should make,” explains school council member Padania Henriques. “We ask people with building skills to lend us their expertise and others help us with the physical labour of building.”
Other members of the council ensure that children who have been orphaned by Aids are still able to come to school. “These children are taken in by relatives, but they have their own children and it puts a lot of strain on them,” says Manuele Mutocorowa. “We try to help by making sure the orphans have books and stationery.” Their dream is to have a hostel at the school to house orphaned children during the school term.
But even with the best will in the world, the school councils — run by community members who are themselves living in poverty — can only do so much. And ironically, this self-help spirit can serve to maintain the status quo, as it is often easier for communities to take action themselves than to lobby government officials for action.
Holding the government to account
The school councils are meant to ensure transparency and accountability around funds allocated from national level through the provinces, then the districts and on to the schools. But often these funds arrive late or not at all, and textbooks and teachers’ salaries are delayed.
Local and international NGOs have been able to make some impact through initiatives such as the Zambézia Education Project, which provides basic classroom materials, and safe housing for female teachers in rural areas, and builds and equips teacher resource centres and school libraries.
But this is not a sustainable solution, so Oxfam and its partner organisations Kukumbi and AMME (The Association for Mozambican Women and Education) are working in communities and with school councils to help citizens demand accountability from their government, and ensure resources designated for education actually reach their children.
It’s a long, slow process, but active citizenship — in which communities demand what is owed them — is the only way that Mozambique’s children will be ensured their right to an education, and a way out of poverty.