country; there were no African graduates. What education was provided was heavily orientated towards supporting the colonial
regime; it consisted mostly of Portuguese language, Portuguese
history and religious instruction. Thus, in setting up educational
services in the liberated zones FRELIMO has had to start from
scratch, with little trained personnel, without textbooks and without a syllabus.
FRELIMO has set up the framework to organise educational
services. Already in the liberated areas 100 schools have been
started which provide primary education for about 10,000 children.
The student-teacher ratio varies from 250:1 to 25:1 and there is
a superintendent of schools in the district. Some textbooks have
been written and more are in preparation. The education department
of FRELIMO is in the process of working out a syllabus which will
be relevant to the needs of the people and the liberation struggle.
Owing to the lack of one predominate national language, the children still have to begin their scholling by learning Portuguese.
However other subjects taught ares the history of the Mozambican
people,geography of Mozambique, arithmetic, basic health and
hygeine, and civics. Civics lessons explain the reasons and purpose of the national liberation struggle, so giving the student the
basis of an understanding which will enable him to take 8.more
active and advanced role in the struggle. There is also a programme
of manual work designed to counter the general aversion to work
caused by the Portuguese system of forced labour.
It is not only the children who are anxious to learn. When
school is over, in many districts, the teacher still has a good
part of his work in front of him, running an adult literacy class.
However the organisation of adult education is still at an embryonic stage and data still has to be collected about numbers,
aptitude and methods.
The lack of materials and staff is a major problem. FRELIMO is
importing various school equipment to the bush schools but many
of them have to make do with very rudimentary materials. The
teachers themselves have often only received primary education and
had no special instruction in teaching.
This last problem should gradually be allaviaied by the work of
the more advanced educational programmes run from Tanzania. Here
there is an upper primary course which prepares children to go
on to the secondary course at the Mozambique Institute.
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