A short description of the EB project.

The EB project is part of the change in syllabus, which became necessary when the Soviet Union collapsed. This change only  became possible, when the civil war ended in 1992 caused by the collapse of apartheid rule in South Africa.

The change implies a change from the Marxist-Leninist ideology into a marked oriented ideology, and was made through cooperation between the former opponents in the civil war, which made the elaboration of a new syllabus difficult in some aspects - especially difficult was to agree on an objective description of the recent history of Mozambique.

In 1995 a National Educational Policy was agreed upon which enhanced

  1. equal access to education

  2. quality and relevance of education

  3. capacity building.

The primary school had mainly been preparation for secondary school, but the vast majority left school after primary. The aim was to make the school more relevant for these pupils and to teach them life skills. In this connection, the local language was a must.

The model used  for teaching mother tongue is based on experience from other countries and recommended by UNESCO:

1 year

2 year

3 year

4 year

5 year

Port. as oral only

Port. as oral only

Port. as written

Portuguese

English 

Mothertongue

Mothertongue

discipline

as medium of

Portuguese

read and write. 

read and write. 

Mothertongue for

instruction in

as medium of

Used for Maths

Used for Maths

maths and

other subjects

instruction in

Science and

Science and

Science and

 

other subjects

other subjects

other subjects

other topics

Mothertongue as subject

The idea is of course:

  1. to teach the ability of reading and writing in the language the pupils understand

  2. to let the pupils learn oral Portuguese before they start reading and writing

  3. to accept that Portuguese is the necessary medium of instruction at a higher level

  4. to introduce English as soon as possible.

For the development and status of the project: Click here