MOZAMBIQUE - Page 12.
CULTURAL LIFE
The cultural life of Mozambique reflects the socio-economic-
political structure that prevails in the country.  In view of the
political status of the territory, Portuguese cultural life is
dominate even though the overwhelming majority of the people do
not even speak Portuguese.  The philosophy guiding Portuguese
colonialism is that every sphere of life of the peoples of any of
the colonies must be guided towards one cultural focus.  The
Portuguese colonial government insists that there be only one
political party, the National Union, emphasizing one political
philosophy, corporativism;  one language, Portuguese;  one religion,
Roman Catholicism, and one general cultural orientation, the
Western European tradition.
The cultural outlook reflects itself in practically every institution in Mozambique.  The most typical representation of this
viewpoint can be seen in the educational structure of the country.
Only Portuguese is taught in all primary schools in Mozambique;
only the Roman Catholic Church is given financial support to
establish schools for the education of the African children, and
until very recently, only those Africans who have assimilated a
certain amount of Portuguese values v/ere given the normal rights
of a Portuguese citizen.
There are two types of school systems in Mozambique:  a) the
Roman Catholic Mission schools, whose function is to educate
Africans through Grade 4;  and b) the government schools which
cater to the education of whites, Asians and a few assimilated
Africans.  The Roman Catholic schools are responsible for teaching the African children reading, writing and arithmetic, with
special stress on the doctrine of the church and the Portuguese
language.  After passing fourth grade, the African pupil is allowed
to take a special examination to see if he can enter secondary
school, both academic and commercial.  There are no special secondary schools for Africans,  a11 African children who wish to continue their education after Grade 4 must find places in technical
and high schools which were established primarily for the education of European and Asian children.  Consequently, the number of
African children who attend secondary schools in Mozambique is
very small as it can be seen by the statistical distribution in
Table II.
T^BLE II
DEGREE OF EDUCATION OF THE LITERATE POPULATION
IN 1950 ABD 1955, BY PERCENTAGE aND RaCIaL GROUPS
1950   1955
Total
Literates
100
Total
Euro
Chin
Ind
Mest-
Afri
Liter
pean
ese
ian
ico
can
ates
100
100
100
100
100
100
[
Can only read
or write
59.0
37.9
33.2
4.4
48.5
45.3
43.8
Attended or
attending primary school
31.2
44.8
43.9
46.7
39.6
49.0
52.8
Attended or
attending secondary school
7.2
15.1
19.5
9.0
11.2
5.6
3.3
Received or
receivxng
higher educa
2.0
2.2
3.4
0.3
0.7
0.1
0.1
tion