At the opening session on Monday of the first national meeting on gender in education and culture, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Maria Conceicao Bila, noted that "Although there have been improvements in the presence of women at the various levels of education and culture, the current situation is still well below what would be desirable".
She pointed to the need to improve the practical mechanisms to ensure that government guidelines on gender equality in schools can be implemented.
Eurico Banze, Director of Special Programmes in the Ministry, said that this meeting must reflect on how to ensure that girls and boys have the same access to school, that both sexes remain at school, and that both achieve academic success.
Banze pointed out that in the first grade of primary education, there are almost equal numbers of boys and girls in the schools, but as one rises through the education system, so the percentage of girl pupils diminishes.
He blamed this largely on "family and cultural factors", notably the fact that in rural Mozambique girls are expected to help in the fields and in household chores.
Cultural prejudices mean that girls are regarded mainly as future mothers - as people whose main tasks in life will be to look after the family home and the children. This is the view of women that leads to premature marriages and early pregnancies.
According to Banze, girls tend to begin school later than they should (they should be in first grade in the year of their sixth birthday), and then drop out, particularly when they achieve puberty. Under pressure from the demand to work on the family fields, and to marry early, large numbers of rural girls will be unable ever to set foot in a secondary school.
These were the phenomena that had to be reversed, said Banze, so that girls could have access to knowledge, and could participate in development on an equal footing with boys.
Participants at the meeting will look at ways of monitoring the gender situation, at provincial, district and school level, to find ways of altering it in favour of girls.
SOURCE: AIM
