Mozambique misses pupil -Teacher ration

Speaking on the Radio Mozambique phone-in programme “Linha Directa”, Vaquina said “We have a challenge and we’re still working on it. We forecast a fall in the number of pupils per teacher from 63 to 61, but unfortunately the ratio did not fall and it is still 63 to one”.

The high number of pupils per class is among the factors leading to poor academic performance and the low quality of education.

Nonetheless, the ratio used to be much worse. Last August, Education Minister Augusto Jone said that four years ago the pupil teacher ration was 76:1.

“In primary education it would be desirable to have a ratio of 48 to 50 pupils per teacher”, he said. “One day we will get there, but now we are working with what is possible. As you know, there are schools where, in the past, the teacher dealt with 70, 80 or 90 pupils per class. We are continuing to push the ratio down in line with the government’s capacities”.

For the five year period ending n 2015, the government’s target is to reduce the ratio to 60:1. To this end it is clearly necessary to recruit more teachers. “Recently we have been recruiting 7,000 to 8,000 teachers a year”, said Jone. “This is the government’s effort to reduce the ratio”.

Currently Mozambique has 118,000 teachers, for 6.7 million pupils in 17,397 schools. The vast majority of these are in primary education, where 98,000 teachers are working in 16,000 schools.