Sam Jones blogs on quality of education in Mozambique

Sam Jones, based at the University of Copenhagen and part of the ‘Inclusive growth in Mozambique’ project, has written a blog on how efforts to provide access to education have affected the quality of learning in Mozambique. He brings attention to the fact that — despite tireless efforts to have more children enrolled in school — the achievement of core learning outcomes, such as reading and arithmetic, continues to be a challenge for the country.

An extract from the article

'The trends in Mozambique largely reflect a political choice to prioritize access to education. While we cannot definitely say that education quality has been sacrificed at the altar of access, the patterns reflect a clear trade-off: achieving consistent and high levels of quality throughout the education system becomes more difficult as the system grows rapidly.

What does this mean going forward? My view is that, however dire we may consider the above evidence, attending school is still associated with some learning. So the response is not to curtail access. But much greater attention needs to be placed on achieving core learning outcomes, particularly functional literacy and numeracy. The challenge is to find effective ways to achieve these outcomes, for all young people, not just push for more time in school.’

Read it full here