Falling secondary school enrolment
In 1975, when Mozambique gained independence, a large-scale schooling policy was launched to train a minimum number of managers capable of running the country. However, decolonization was followed by a period of civil war that lasted almost fifteen years, destroying schools and considerably weakening the education system. In the 2000s, the government launched new programs and action plans in response to the post-war situation. Today, some 50.6% of adults are still illiterate, a higher rate in rural than in urban areas. There are regional disparities: 15% of the population is illiterate in Maputo province, compared with 70% in Cabo Delgado province (to the north). But this illiteracy does not actually concern children. Progress over the last ten years has been spectacular. In 2020, nearly 50,000 children were still not enrolled in school, compared with over 500,000 in 2013, according to Unesco figures. Everywhere in Mozambique, uniformed schoolgirls and schoolboys can be seen along the roads. School is almost compulsory. But the further away you live, the more complicated access to education becomes, for geographical and financial reasons. Some children walk miles under the sun to learn to read and count. Once they arrive at school, the pupils are divided into classrooms - hard-built for the luckier ones - with more than fifty little apprentices. Some parents are far from being able to afford new equipment for their children. The gap between boys and girls is minimal, and it's the parents' social circumstances that determine how much they can afford to send their children to school. On the other hand, access to secondary education has not changed over the last ten years. On the contrary, the gap is widening, with over 800,000 teenagers not attending school, compared with 700,000 in 2013. It's after elementary school that the gaps widen between North and South, between social classes and between genders. The poorest families tend to keep their children at home, in the fields, as a labor force.
Initiatives to help girls go to school
While almost 94% of girls attend elementary school, only 11% continue on to secondary school, following the same pattern as boys, but even more marked. To show that they too have the right to learn and succeed, Gorongosa National Park has created a girls' education program with the "Girls Clubs" to give local girls a chance to study in secondary school, by providing uniforms, materials and school. Started in 2016, the initiative now has fifty "clubs" educating nearly 2,000 girls in very rural and poor areas. Unesco's Malala Fund is behind the Family Learning Program, currently open in the provinces of Maputo and Nampula, where more than half of adults are illiterate, an apprenticeship that enables parents, even those who have not had the means to go to school, to make up for the shortage of early childhood education and prepare their children for primary school. The United Nations Education Organization has implemented the "Education 2030" agenda. CapED is working with the government to improve primary education for young people and adults, a program that benefits nearly 500 students, 70% of them girls.
The paradoxical place of women
In 1990, following the proclamation of equality between men and women, a number of women's associations came into being. There is also a National Union of Peasant Women, chaired by a woman. In its history, the role of women was valued during the years of Marxism in Mozambique. In fact, April 7 was established as Women's Day, the day Josina Machel died in 1971 at the age of 25. She was none other than the daughter of Samora and Graça Machel, a resistance fighter, politician and above all a campaigner for women's rights. Every year, from April 7 for a month, the country's women wear loincloths bearing her effigy. Today, this right is institutionalized. However, the initiative has been widely criticized. The establishment of such an entity has not always been seen as a priority for the country's development, and Mozambican society is still traditionally run by men. It is also a symbol out of touch with the realities of the country, where the vast majority of women work in the fields, producing crops, fetching water, cooking, doing housework and raising children. Women are considered by the rulers to be one of the pillars of rural development, as they constitute an important labor force, and it is they who give birth to new workers. Polygamy is commonplace, without the women concerned being asked for their opinion.
Nevertheless, attitudes towards women are fairly flexible, especially in the cities. It's common to see women smoking in everyday life. They frequent bars and cafés, even in the evenings. There are no taboos when it comes to sex. However, while it may seem like a good place to live in Mozambique for a woman, the weight of traditional structures is still very much in evidence, and marriages in rural areas do not always allow the freedom provided for by law.
Heavy beliefs to carry
Another social difficulty affects single mothers, and even more so mothers of handicapped children. Still too many people believe that this is the result of black magic or adultery. Mothers are then completely rejected and blamed by society. A very harsh situation that the Cooperativa luana semeia sorrisos association is trying to reverse. Founded in 2016 by a woman who is herself the mother of a disabled child, it wants to change mentalities so that mothers stop being seen as witches and children, many of whom aren't even diagnosed, can stay with their families. The association, which lives mainly on donations, offers physiotherapeutic support for the children, as well as psychological support for the mothers.
