OPEN UNIVERSITY ISCED

Department of Law

Law Degree Course

The impact of COVID-19 on Education in Mozambique

Titos Alfredo Uate – 31220251

Xai – Xai, May 2022

 OPEN UNIVERSITY ISCED

Department of Law

Law Degree Course

The impact of COVID-19 on Education in Mozambique

Field work to be submitted at the

Coordination of the Licentiate Degree in
Law Course at ISCED.

Tutor: Msc: Casimiro Massunguine

Titos Alfredo Uate – 31220251

Xai – Xai, May 2022

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 Index
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1

1.1. Objectives ........................................................................................................................ 1

1.1.1. General Objectives ....................................................................................................... 1

1.1.2. Specific objective ......................................................................................................... 1

1.2. Methodology.................................................................................................................... 1

2. The impact of COVID-19 on Education in Mozambique ................................................... 2

2.1. The Origin of COVID-19 ................................................................................................ 2

2.2. The Impact of COVID-19 on Education in Mozambique ............................................... 3

2.3. The Parents role in Education in Pandemic Moment ...................................................... 4

2.4. The preparation of schools and staff................................................................................ 4

3. Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 7

4. References ........................................................................................................................... 8

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 1. Introduction

Corona Virus disease in an inflectional disease that suddenly appeared and has spread and
cleared several human lives worldwide. In Mozambique it was declared in March and because
of its easy transmission (COVID-19 can be transmitted from “person-to-person” through saliva
“droplets “generated by coughing or breathing (oral fluids) and also by physical contact with
contaminated people or surfaces (MISAU, 2020) obliged the Mozambican Government to
interrupt the lessons at all levels.

The subject matter of this paper is to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on education in
Mozambique. The work has been organised in: introduction, literature review, conclusion and
reference.

1.1.Objectives

1.1.1. General Objectives

 Analyse the impact of COVID-19 on education in Mozambique

1.1.2. Specific objective

 Define Covid-19;
 Identify the ways of preventing covid-19;

 Describe the origin of covid-19;

 Analyse the impact of covid-19 on Education in Mozambique

1.2.Methodology

This work focused on bibliography research which consisted on requiring information gathered
from published materials such as books, magazines, journals, magazines website, blogs
bibliographic databases and online resources.

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 2. The impact of COVID-19 on Education in Mozambique

2.1.The Origin of COVID-19

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

This disease belongs to a large family of viruses that cause illnesses associated with common
flu and more serious illnesses, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS),

Having appeared in the city of Wuhan, China, in December 2019, news of the mysterious
respiratory disease became public. This situation brought disorientation and worsened to the
point that, on 13th May 2020, the Executive Director of the World Health Organization (WHO)
Emergency Program, Mike Ryan, announced that ‘Covid-19 may never disappear’. In that
sense, it could become an endemic disease like HIV-AIDS, so we have to learn to live with it.

The rapid expansion of cases of infection caused by the disease in the population in many
countries around the world meant that on 11th March, the World Health Organization (WHO),
declared COVID-19 as a pandemic (WHO, 2020b). The first case of COVID-19 was declared
in Mozambique on 22 March 2020.

The outbreak has now reached all the 11 provinces of the country, with Maputo province and
Maputo town, Cabo Delgado and Nampula being the hardest-hit. Mozambique's President,
Filipe Nyusi, declared a first State of Emergency from 1st April to 31 July, announcing a number
of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19. On 5th August, the Government declared a
second State of Emergency from 8th August to 6th September. The second state of emergency
also enabled the continued enforcement of restrictive measures to prevent and control the
pandemic including mandatory wearing of face masks in public spaces, social distancing
measures, and limits on social gatherings and recreational activities.

As on 7th September, President Nyusi declared a situation of public calamity for an indefinite
period of time, in the framework of the new disaster management law. The declaration was
accompanied by a red alert, the maximum level of warning decreed in the event of an imminent
large-scale threat. In this period, all the preventive measures against COVID-19 declared during
the state of emergency will remain in force while the Government is now planning to reopen a
number of services and economic sectors that were closed down during the state of emergency.

As of March 23, 2020, Mozambique became part of the list of countries with confirmed cases
of the disease caused by the new Corona-virus (WHO, 2020a, p. 05).
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In addition, COVID-19 can be transmitted from “person-to-person” through
saliva“ droplets ”generated by coughing or breathing (oral fluids) and also by physical contact
with contaminated people or surfaces (MISAU, 2020).

2.2.The Impact of COVID-19 on Education in Mozambique

The pandemic scenario forced the Government of Mozambique to devise strategies to contain
the rapid spread of Covid-19 by declaring a state of emergency at national level by the Head of
State. Among the measures announced by the President of the Republic is the suspension of
classes in all public and private educational institutions, from pre-school to higher education,
and also the reduction of the number of people participating in social events, except for
activities of strictly public interest, and the mandatory use of masks in crowded spaces, as is
the case with markets, as well as public transport. In Mozambique, due to the closure of classes,
the Ministry of Education and Development (MINED) and the Ministry of Science and
Technology, Higher Education and Technical Professionals (MCTESTP), were challenged to
create strategies in order to guarantee the continuity of classes through the use of other
mechanisms/platforms such as online classes community radios, social media networks such as
WhatsApp, Google Meet, Google Classroom, Skype, Moodle, e-mail, etc.

It should be noted that the platforms officially used for classes’ primary and secondary
education are television, radio, internet together with exercises and support sheets that must be
monitored by parents and/or guardians, which according to the findings of the Education
authorities are a success, but it is not known whether students are following classes. Recognize
that Mozambican studies such as the one carried out by MINED in 2020, show that parents
and/or guardians have a lot of difficulty in monitoring the students.

It is known that the 8.3 million Mozambican students attending either primary or secondary
education, are distributed across various parts of the country, rather than being only in the
country's principal cities.

According to 2017 statistics of the Mozambican population: About 30% of the population
live in urban areas; 70% live in huts; only 22.2% of Mozambicans have access to electricity, so
the rest use batteries, candles, oil / paraffin, batteries and other sources of energy; 35% have
radio in their homes and 29.1% have TV. In short, 70.9% of Mozambicans do not have a TV
and will not be able to follow classes online or on the radio (INE, 2017).

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There are many Mozambicans who are unable to buy megabytes to attend classes “online”, on
technological platforms, or even to make photocopies of textbooks. Some parents do not know
what a photocopier is. In some parts of the country, a photocopy can cost between 3 and 5
meticais, which contrasts with sources of income that a low.

2.3.The Parents role in Education in Pandemic Moment

During this period, parents have to play their role on own resources to continue their children
learning remotely through the internet, television or radio and also from keeping the children
safe and out of risk, to provide enough resources for the learning. Following governmental
authorities in the field of education, parents have to buy handouts so that their children can learn
safely at home. In addition to that, they also have to buy books recommended by the Ministry
of Education or access the modules from the site of MINEDH (ead.mined.gov.mz) and have to
know the school timetables, since children go to school 2 to 3 days per week as a way of
reducing the number of students in classes, from 60/70 to at least 25/30.

There are also a lot of disadvantages for those children whose parents are not educated enough
to be able to help them. Therefore, parent’s role for these children become of no effect since
they cannot help them due to their unpreparedness, as well as their total involvement in primary
and basic activities which allow them to bring food and other supplies home.

2.4.The preparation of schools and staff

Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, education system in Mozambique is increasingly

looking towards national policy experiences, data and analyses as it develops its own policy
responses for safety and security in our schools.

The Law Decree 17th March 2020 number 18 refers to distance learning support measures
announced by the Italian government as to equip schools with digital platforms and tools for
distance learning, lend digital devices to less well-off students, and train school staff in
methodologies and techniques for distance learning. This is evidence that just like our schools
in Mozambique, international schools are not well and enough prepared to face this dilemma,
which made the government authorities have to reopen schools in phases.

In Mozambique the schools reopened first for older students in, especially for final year students
who were sitting Primary and secondary school qualification examinations or entrance
examinations for tertiary education. Those opportunities, however, were to be carefully

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weighed against the health risks and sanitary measures needed to minimise the health impact of
the pandemic.

Several steps were taken to prepare schools to manage the risks and trade-offs such as : develop
clear protocols on physical distancing measures, including avoiding activities that require large
gatherings, staggering the start and end of the school day, staggering meal times, moving classes
to temporary spaces or outdoors, and having students attend in shifts to reduce class size.
Equally important were protocols and practice on hygiene measures (washing hands constantly
with soup, ashes and hand sanitizers), including handwashing, respiratory etiquette, use of
protective equipment (gloves and face masks), cleaning procedures for facilities and safe food
preparation practices.

Similarly, administrative and teaching staff needed training on how to cope with the virus, to
recognise risks and to implement appropriate measures. This includes implementing physical
distancing and hygiene practices, such as increasing both the intensity and frequency of
cleaning and disinfection activities and improving waste management practices. Cleaning staff
needed to be trained in disinfection and be equipped with personal protection equipment as far
as possible.

According to the Ministério de Educação e Desenvolvimento Humano (MINEDH, 2020), one

of the measures taken because of the difficulties to promote night schools, students were
organised in order to learn in distance, which followed the adjustment of the school syllabus
for primary and secondary school levels. To accommodate this idea, the syllabus had to include
contents of two classes known as in order to allow the development of competencies of the
same learning cycle.

In terms of class organisation there were different ways planned to allow social distancing as
pointed by the health authorities in the context of COVID-19. The class sizes were structured
in groups not more than 25 students and to reduce the time of students at school, the time was
also reduced to 30 minutes without short break times within the lessons, except the one of ten
(10) minutes for lunch time.

In schools with classes less than 25 students, which follow is scenario 1, students have lessons
every day, comprising one student for each desk, respecting a social distance of 1.5 metres with
the length up to 4 hours and 30 minutes.

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Scenario 2 should be used in schools with class sizes less than 50 students, where lessons are
taught alternatively. In this case, students are divided into two (2) groups of 25 each, sitting in
a distance of 1.5 metres and one student for each desk. To understand the alternatives of lessons
per week, see the table below:

Finally, in classes up to 75 students, lessons were taught dividing the class sizes into 25 students
each with the same distance and length just as the first 2 scenarios described above. So the
students only go school twice per week, including Saturdays.

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 3. Conclusion

The innovations on Education campus as a result of COVID-19 brought a lot of transformation

and development at school in the way that the schools were equipped, and rebuild to adequate
to the new reality. All those efforts will be permanently seen.

Although not all the parents were prepared to play their role to face the challenge in providing
learning to their students, covid-19 had made the parents to recognise their roles in teaching
process as this value was almost lost.

Looking at all these aspects, we can realise how COVID-19 pandemic changed life in society,
some to be better and others to worse situations.

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 4. References

American Heart Association recommendations for physical activity in adults and kids. (2018).

Goodman, N. (2015). The impact of employment on the health status and health care costs of
working-age people with disabilities.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/aha-recs-for-physical-activity-
in-adults

World Gealth Organization. Constitution of the world Health Organization’Basic Documents,

Forty-fifteen Edition, 2006.

World Health Organization (1984). Regional Office for Europe. Health Promotion: a
discussion document on the concept and principles: summary report of the working
group on concept of principles of Health Promotion, Copenhagen.