18 January 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican Education Ministry on Friday launched a programme, entitled "Education IV", which is intended to build the institutional capacity of the 11 Provincial Directorates of Education and Culture, to improve teacher training, and to build and rehabilitate secondary schools in four provinces in the north and centre of the country.
The project is budgeted at 31.5 million US dollars, of which 29 million comes from the African Development Bank (ADB), and 2.5 million from the Mozambican state budget
Work on the secondary schools is budgeted at eight million dollars, and is due to begin in February. According to Carlos Chissano, the deputy national director of planning and cooperation in the Education Ministry, the work will last between eight and 15 months, depending on the school.
The programme envisages building new secondary schools at Mocuba, the second largest city in the central province of Zambezia, at Cuamba, in the northernmost province of Niassa, and at Montepuez in the neighbouring province of Cabo Delgado.
In Nampula province, the secondary schools in the towns of Ribaue and Angoche will be rehabilitated. So will secondary schools in the Niassa and Cabo Delgado capitals, Lichinga and Pemba.
All these schools will teach both cycles of secondary education, from eighth to 12 grade. Three companies have been contracted to do the work - the Chinese company Nantong Construction in Zambezia and Nampula, the Portuguese company Ergogeste in Niassa, and the Mozambican company CETA in Cabo Delgado.
"All the conditions are ready for the contractors to begin their operations in February. The building materials are already in place", Chissano told reporters.
The provincial directors of education in the four provinces have each received a vehicle so that they can check personally on the progress of the work, and ensure that it is of good quality, and completed on time.
Education Minister Aires Aly noted that there had been considerable improvements in the school building programme in 2007, in terms of quality and compliance with deadlines. Nonetheless, there were cases of primary schools that should have been delivered in May, but are still unfinished.
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