The education sector in Zambezia province has a budget deficit to carry out its activities. At the moment, the sector needs 50 million meticals to intervene in just over 500 schools, some of which are affected by natural phenomena, but the sector has no money to meet its needs.
Initially, a total of 900 schools were in need of intervention, of which 810 were damaged by Cyclone Freddy. Later, some interventions were carried out in around 400 schools, leaving a further 500 schools still in need of intervention.
However, in order to get all the schools up and running, the sector needed 9 billion meticals, as explained by the provincial director of education.
“When Cyclone Freddy hit, we had nearly 900 schools, but when the study was carried out after the depression, we realised that 810 schools had suffered severely. Of that number, 400 schools have been completely repaired and the rest have not, due to limited funds,” said Joaquim Casal.
“But this money ended up being criticised in its own right, at the time the provincial emergency operating committee saw that it was a lot of money, but we needed that amount to intervene in all the schools, in other words, where there was a precarious school we wanted to build a more conventional one. But the approach was that the bet was to intervene only in the damaged ones. At the moment, our indication is that if we had 50 million meticals we would intervene in all the schools in the province. At the moment, we are removing the old roofs and replacing them with new ones with the necessary resilience in the face of climate change,” he said.
Another major problem the sector is experiencing is related to the process of hiring teachers. Zambezia needs to hire 5,000 teachers every year, including primary school teachers, but due to a lack of money the number of teachers hired each year is no more than 400.
“We are growing in terms of the number of pupils entering school each year, but this is not directly proportional to the recruitment of teachers. This has led to an excessive increase in the number of students due to a shortage of teachers. You see, this year we’ve only hired around 400 teachers in the N1, N2 and N3 categories, and the numbers are far below the needs,” said the provincial director of education, Joaquim Casal, pointing out that N4 teachers have not been hired due to a lack of proposals from the ministry.
Joaquim Casal said that the sector already has a plan to hire 5,000 teachers a year. Casal believes that if the province hires 5,000 teachers a year, in a five-year government cycle, Zambezia will lower its student-teacher ratio from 72 to at least 50, which is recommended. This would also mean more classrooms to form more classes.
Last week Education officials in Zambezia were at a planning meeting, where they discussed various issues of concern to the sector.
O País
