Maputo, 6 Feb (AIM) – Mozambican Education Minister Samaria Tovela has guaranteed that all the country’s public schools will have free school textbooks available by the end of March.
In recent years, the Mozambican Education System has been facing severe problems in the distribution of the school text books. These troubles are related to the recruitment of incompetent people as coordinators and authors of the books, some of which, in 2022, contained gross errors in the subjects of Geography, Mathematics and History.
In order to avoid delays in distribution of the books, the Mozambican Association of Printing Industries (AIGM) called on the government to favour national printers through favourable public tenders focused on the existing capacities in the country, instead of privileging foreign companies, especially those of Portuguese origin.
But although the Mozambican companies have the capacity to print the books, financing agencies insist on international tenders, which are always won by non-Mozambican companies.
According to Tovela, who was speaking to reporters on Thursday, in Maputo, there are already some books available for primary and secondary education in digital form and they are also being shared across the country.
“The books are already in all the provinces, and now the provinces are putting the books into schools. We would like the distribution of the physical books to be completed by February, but given the state of the access roads, that will not be possible”, she said. “Hence, we are working so that by the end of March at the latest, the books will be in all the schools”, Tovela said.
(AIM)
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