Child Poverty in Mozambique. A Situation and Trend ... - Unicef

While the lower primary school completion rate has improved, it remains very low.
More than half of primary school age children leave the educational system before
having completed Grade 5, without adequate reading, writing and numeracy skills.
Furthermore, only around one third successfully complete their primary education,
making the attainment of the MDG relating to education improbable by 2015. This
problem is exacerbated by incomplete schools (i.e. those that are not able to offer
places to all students eligible to move into the next grade every school year), which
according to data from the Ministry of Education and Culture numbered approximately
2,300 at EP1 level in 2005, therefore representing some 27 per cent of all EP1 level
schools.
Significant inequalities also persist in terms of access, based on where a child lives,
whether the child is a boy or a girl and on the level of poverty in his or her household.
There are currently approximately 660,000 children of primary school age (6-12) in
Mozambique who are not attending primary school.
Two sources of information are used in the following analysis: administrative data
from the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) and the household surveys
conducted by INE, with a particular focus on the 2003 Demographic and Health
Survey (DHS).
A. Trends in gross and net enrolment ratios
The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) in public schools
have continuously increased since the end of the civil war, both at primary and
secondary education levels. This analysis focuses on trends over the period 1999 to
2005, which corresponds to the period covered by the first Education Sector Strategic
Plan (ESSP). 51 At primary level, in the period 1999 to 2005, the GER in EP1 increased
from 85 per cent to 131 per cent, while in EP2 it increased from 22 per cent to 47
per cent. During this period, the public primary school system absorbed on average
240,000 new learners each year, with the absolute number of learners enrolled in EP1
and EP2 increasing from about 2.2 million in 1999 to over 3.8 million in 2005. Over the
same period, the NER in EP1 and EP2 increased substantially, from 50 per cent to 83
per cent in EP1 and from 2.5 per cent to 7 per cent in EP2.
Access to secondary education follows a similar pattern of increase, with the absolute
number of students enrolled in ESG1 and ESG2 more than trebling between 1999 and
2005. In ESG1, student enrolment (excluding nocturnes) increased from about 64,006
to 210,128 and in ESG2 the number of children enrolled increased from 8,368 in
1999 to 25,737 by 2005. However, access to secondary education remains extremely
limited and highly inequitable. In 2005, GER in ESG1 and ESG2 were 17 per cent
and 4 per cent respectively, while NER in ESG1 was 4 per cent and in ESG2 only 1
per cent. Access to secondary education remains the privilege of very few children,
mostly those in urban areas and from the wealthiest quintile of the population. 52 In
2005, there were 156 public ESG1 schools, concentrated in 97 of the 146 districts and
33 municipalities of the country. The same year, the number of ESG2 schools in the
country was only 35, concentrated in urban centres in 27 districts and municipalities.
51 The ESSP originally covered the period 1999 to 2003. It was de facto extended until 2005 in the absence of a second Strategic Plan. The
second strategic plan was approved in 2006 for the period 2006 to 2011.
52 It shou
CHILDHOOD POVERTY IN MOZAMBIQUE: A SITUATION AND TRENDS ANALYSIS
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