The local development projects, PDLAM and PDLM, in Alto Molocue and Milange in central Mozambique will be phased out by New Year 2003. That’s six months before planned, but the local partners have agreed to the change, because it opens the way for two new education projects.
The education projects will fall under the thematic education programme, Education for Change in Rural Communities, which aims to improve the quality of education in rural Mozambique. Many teachers only have limited training, and about half the children don’t attend school. Local chiefs, teachers, education directors and other authorities participated in a recent workshop in the town of Mocuba, situated between Milange and Alto Molocue. Here ideas for the new projects were exchanged. The debate was fuelled by a theatre performance, which showed a teacher trying to seduce a girl in his class.
Sex-abuse of pupils is widespread in Mozambique, and school boards, pupil councils, teacher training schools can play an important role in the fight against the problem. The new education projects are expected to address this and many other problems in the schools in central Mozambique.
