Maputo Craziness. Reflections on 3 days hunting down NGO information in the capital city of Mozambique.
Three days, filled with copious amounts of walking, unanswered emails, frustration, and some limited successes here in Maputo, Mozambique. I had a long list of names, players in the educational development field that I had contacted, to varying initial success, before arriving in Mozambique from Cape Town, South Africa. The purpose of this research, on the ground here in the developing world, is many-fold. It is one thing to read about programs on the internet, to look at glossy brochures of development; what is actually encountered in person is sometimes very similar, and sometimes very different. Understanding the realities on the ground is essential, simply said. It is a hands-on education, a PhD of self-inspired learning. The ability to judge with one's own professionally discriminating eyes and perspective the work being done in these most vulnerable of areas is critical to both garnering a well-balanced rationale for successes and failures encountered, and is also critical to the development of my own platform, a multi-faceted approach to learning and literacy that is being crafted and molded with each inspiring (or lack thereof) organization and individual I encounter in these foreign lands. And the simple inspiration that comes in talking with someone working in education development, piloting an initiative that will change lives, the spark in their eyes, provides fuel for my own personal and professional development in this arena. Without further adieu, I will attempt to list the players, the actions, their plans, and my results:
1. Concern Universal: See separate interview.
2. UNICEF: The United Nations Childrens Foundation, which is running an Education for All program in Mozambique, seemed the natural place to start. After sending several inquiry emails which were not answered, I decided that a human presence would be required. After being brushed off by the communications officer, I was given the name of the education specialist who was traveling in Zambezia Province. I reached out to her several times to no result. From my experiences here in Maputo, the United Nations organizations have many lofty goals, many great SUV's, and lots of staff, but the fact that nobody was available, despite many attempts, to explain their educational development support, I was left with a slightly salty UN taste in my mouth. I will continue to try to contact their offices in the north of the country when I arrive there tomorrow. From their website, some interesting information which led me to their doorstep initially:
Over the past number of years, the opportunities for children to go to school have improved considerably in Mozambique. In absolute terms, the number of children in lower primary grades rose from 1.7 million in 1997 to 2.8 million in 2003. During this period, the school network grew substantially, with the number of lower primary schools increasing from 6,114 in 1998 to 8,077 in 2003. The net enrollment rate for lower primary grades (EP1 - grades 1 to 5) reached 69% in 2003 compared to 44% in 1997.
However, the numbers of teachers did not increase proportionally. This led to an increase of the teacher-pupil-ratio to 1:66 in EP1 from 1:61 in 1997. The proportion of unqualified teachers has also risen from 30 percent in 1997 to 42 percent in 2003. The quality of teaching is closely linked to the availability, competence and morale of teachers, who continue to face serious problems, including low salaries, lack of an adequate pedagogical support and teaching materials.
3. The Aga Khan Foundation: The Aga Khan Foundation does tremendous work in all areas of development through the developing world. Their focuses are education, health care, and infrastructure development, and they are led by the Aga Khan himself, a Muslim sect leader who has been endowed with considerable resources and has chosen to use them with extreme benevolence. I was able to visit their headquarters here in Maputo and speak to Bruno Costa, who has been working to set up the new Aga Khan Academy on the outskirts of Maputo. The Aga Khan Academies have already been established in several other countries, and aim to provide an international-quality education to both local students and international students using the International Baccalaureate Certificate system.
What is important to this research is what the Foundation has been doing in the lead up to the opening of the Academy: they have been working over the year to train local teachers, to bring their qualifications and English levels up to the standards that will be required by the Academy, as well as local teachers who will continue working at the local level. The teacher training initiative is being run through three tiers, of which, two have already been completed; there are 12 local teachers who are being provided with some of the best teacher training available, working through both local trainers and teachers brought in from Canada for the purpose. The programs supported by the Aga Khan, including their Academies as well as their educational support services in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, aim to target the female population, to decrease the educational gender gap. According to Bruno, this is a key focus of the Aga Khan's philosophy, and a critical directive in this part of the developing world. I was able to ask Bruno some questions pertaining to the general state of the educational system here in Mozambique, as he is a local product of the Mozambiquan school system.
J: Teachers play an absolutely crucial role in this area. How are teachers retained, paid, trained, and motivated to progress in their work? What are the incentives for doing a good job in the classroom?
B: Teacher pay here in Mozambique is very low, which creates a lack of incentive for them to do a great job in the classroom. There is a common mentality in the country, not just with teachers, but by many other workers, that they are not getting paid much, so they do not have to focus on the quality of their work. Thus, a lack of public funding for the schools here creates a lack of motivation for the teachers, which is the biggest issue, other than the infrastructure deficits which are also daunting. (An extremely common theme in the developing world; how to link pay to performance, to motivate teachers when there simply isn't the public funding available to do so, even to a minimal level...)
Who are the most essential partners that you work with in the local setting?
The Foundation has been working closely with the Ministry of Education for the Academy; they are a crucial partner, and as the state, are thus required to be informed of every step of progress made. Also the Language Institute, a private learning organization here in Maputo, has been working with us in teacher training and has played a crucial role in our development.
What resources are currently most needed by both your organization and by the schools system in Mozambique overall?
The quality of education here in Mozambique as a whole is very low. Teacher training is of a very poor quality in general (with exceptions, of course). Most teachers attend a central teacher training institute here in Mozambique, but there are great hindrances in this; the trainers of the trainers are a big weak link in this chain, and the results trickle down to the general teacher population, which has been extremely damaging to the school system in general. The national curriculum has also been through a lot of changes recently and they are trying to improve upon it, but this has not happened in reality, so much. The school system is now using a no child left behind system where students automatically progress, which has very strong drawbacks for the students and teachers alike. The curriculum can also be very difficult for the students of the ages and not always appropriate; I had friends come from Canada who looked at some of the materials being used by the third graders here in Maputo; they were shocked at the level of learning expected. You can imagine how this plays out for the population-at-large.
In the country, the class sizes are also very large, which is, of course, a huge problem for both the teachers and students. (These two issues are absolutely critical to understand from a pedagogical perspective on their potential to completely disrupt the process of learning. Large class sizes are a destroyer of both teacher-control and motivation on both levels; imagine a poorly-paid teacher having to grade papers for one class of 70 students! The non-performing national curriculum is also a potential non-starter for the educational process and development. These are two HUGE red flags.)
What role could technology play in the classrooms in Mozambique? Is this a feasible possibility?
Recently, the government has been trying to set up computer labs in the schools and plans to connect them to the internet, to use as resource rooms for the schools. Of course, this is plagued by low funding and the remoteness of many locations.
4. The U.S. Peace Corps, Mozambique: It struck me later than on might have thought to utilize this resource here in Africa; as a former Peace Corps volunteer, I have access to an amazing network of both offices and volunteers spread throughout 70 countries in the developing world. After cruising over to the Peace Corps Mozambique office (way nicer than the Peace Corps Micronesia office!) I met with Sergio, the program director for the education sector. After explaining the gist of my project and research, he agreed to pass my request to meet some of the volunteers of “the north” in the field who are working in schools to ask them a few questions, namely, on critical resource needs, on local language literacy programs, and on bringing technology into their school locations. Nobody knows grass roots development like Peace Corps volunteers out in the field; after 27 months, one learns much about the needs of the local communities; I am still waiting to connect these pieces when I arrive in the North of the country, but I hope to make use of this network accordingly for my research. And it was so great to see the framed portriats of Obama and Biden on the wall as I walked into the office (I had to endure 27 months of walking into an office under the Darth Vader-like grimace of Cheney and Bush, which was not a highlight of my service).
5. USAID Mozambique: After having some trouble tracking down the office location, and not hearing back from my initial request for information, I decided to make a boots-on-the-ground approach to the USAID office here in Maputo. After going through the prerequisite deft security screenings (better than the national airport, hands down), I was put in contact with Tess Robinson, who was a former education volunteer in the north of the country, and Jannie Kwok, who is working to implement the new education strategy of AID (more on that later). Both Tess and Jannie were amazingly accommodating for my research, and their contacts and help will be invaluable as I head north into the remote regions of the country. I was also able to get some information about a new One Laptop Per Child initiative that has just been launched in the country a month or two ago, a lead am trying to follow, as there has been limited deployments in the region of OLPC, outside of the Rwanda bulwark. Looking at AID's new strategy, they are following three important goals: (1) The improved reading skills for 100million primary school children by 2015 (2) improving access to technical training and vocational education to generate workforce skills relevant to the country's development goals (3) Improving access to education in conflict and crisis zones for 15 million learners by 2015. Furthermore, some inspiring words from the strategy paper itself, which I will be devoting more time to analyzing as soon as some free time opens up: Education is foundational to human development and critical to broadbased economic growth. Few societies have achieved high and sustained rates of growth or significantly reduced poverty without first investing in expanding access to quality education. Further, education has proven essential for developing an informed and active citizenry, required for healthy democratic practice and for enabling individuals to make smarter choices affecting health and household welfare. Education remains the key for unlocking the individual's intellectual and creative potential. Good Stuff.
Some additional information on the state of education in Mozambique, from the OXFAM Education Initiative: Due to the very low quality of education, drop out rates are high and completion in primary schools remains well below the regional average and hinders progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All (EFA) and, more broadly, a sustained reduction in poverty. In 2003, only 38.7 per cent of children starting school managed to pass the exam after grade 5. Despite progress in increasing the overall enrollment, large disparities remain when it comes to gender equity. The enrollment rate for boys stood at 72.4% in 2003 compared to 66.4 % for girls. There are many reasons behind gender disparity in education. Some families do not place enough importance on the girls’ education. Families in poorer families tend to choose to keep the girls at home to help with domestic work or to assist with income generation.
