OJM asks Nyusi to cut the costs of higher education

Maputo, 2 Apr (AIM) – The Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM), the youth wing of the ruling Frelimo Party, on Monday asked President Filipe Nyusi to intervene to reduce the costs of higher education, regarded as “suffocating”.

Speaking in the southern city of Matola, at the opening session of a meeting of the OJM National Council, its General Secretary, Silva Livone, claimed that the high costs of Mozambican higher education are out of line with the financial realities of young Mozambicans, who often have to finance their education themselves.

Livone said that last November, along with the Association of Mozambican University Students, “we reached the consensus that the OJM should ask Comrade President (i.e. Nyusi) for a reduction in the costs of higher education in both the public and private sectors”.

“Young people are asking for this, Comrade President”, he insisted. “We know that you, in your capacity as a friend of young people, will know how best to channel this request from your children”.

Livone recognized that, under Nyusi’s leadership of the country, young people had won greater space in governance and decision making. As an example he cited the increase in the number of mayors of Mozambican municipalities who came from the ranks of the OJM.

A decade ago only four of the mayors elected on the Frelimo ticket had come from the OJM. But in last year’s municipal elections, the figure rose to 14.

In addition, claimed Livone, wherever Frelimo is in power, there are youths from the OJM, who are chairpersons of municipal assemblies, municipal counsellors, chairpersons of municipal working commissions, and heads of administrative posts.

He promised Nyusi (who had given the keynote speech at the opening session) that “we shall continue working for Frelimo to win and to govern. But, as young people, we must also say that governing means responsibility, governing means serving the people who have trusted us”.

When a reporter asked Livone what he thought the qualities of the next President of the Republic should be, he replied that he should be as similar to the incumbent, Filipe Nyusi, as possible.

(AIM)

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