Education in Mozambique

Education in Mozambique is organized by three main stages: primary education, secondary education and higher education. By 2013, the literacy rate was 48%. The largest and oldest university is the Eduardo Mondlane University, in Maputo, founded in 1962. Although having a national public education system, several educational programmes and initiatives in Mozambique are mainly funded and supported by the international community. According to USAID, as of 2009 Mozambique still lacks sufficient schools and teachers to guarantee education for the nation’s youth. An estimated 60% of adults still cannot read and write, with the illiteracy rate higher among women.

Prior and during the colonial period, native African education in Portuguese East Africa was essentially informal, with initiation rites within tribes the only formal element. Formal education was however provided by Koranic schools in Muslim towns, primarily in the north. These schools focused on knowledge of the Koran and Koranic Arabic. In areas of Portuguese control or influence, schooling was also undeveloped. From the seventeenth century, Portuguese and a small number of Africans received a basic level of education (and inculcation in Portuguese cultural and religious values) at mission schools in Portuguese towns, but many of the children of Portuguese or African princes were instead sent to Goa or Portugal for their education. The small number of educated Africans meant a lack of literate workers, the shortfall being made up in part by Indians.

A growth in the educational activities of missionaries from other countries prompted the introduction of various controls in 1907: education could henceforth be conducted only in Portuguese or the native languages, while schools and textbooks were subject to government approval.

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