5.000 teachers being recruited

Mozambique's new Education Minister, Aires Aly, announced that around 5.000 extra teachers were being recruited throughout the country. In 2004, the Education Ministry estimated at 10.000 the requirements for new teachers for the 2005 school year. But there was only enough money in the budget to pay for 4.000. This resulted in pupils starting the year without teachers, while many graduates from teacher training colleges were left unemployed. In order to implement the government's anti-poverty programme, Aly said, it was imperative to ensure that technical and professional educational institutions bore fruit in the short term, endowing Mozambican citizens with the skills and capacities to face the challenges ahead. Labour Minister Helena Taipo stressed that proper attention to technical and professional education would raise productive capacity and reduce the need to recruit foreign labour. The World Bank has also promised to finance the government's technical and professional education programme. (Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique, Maputo)