Mozambique: Development Will be Achived Through Training and Education

Joaquim Alberto Chissano, former President of the Republic of Mozambique, talks about the importance of training and education for the development of the country.

“I won’t be saying anything new, because the way we would like to develop the country has been outlined since our Independence, which is to have agriculture as a foundation in economic terms. But this is necessarily linked to education as a first priority, followed by health, while having agriculture as an economic foundation. However, it was also said that industry should be the aim, to be built upon this foundation, which is why we saw industrial development as the ‘energising’ factor. When I talk about industry, I am referring to agroindustry in the first instance, but also all other types of industry that require know-how. Let us take a very simple example. In Mozambique, we produce cotton, but our factories have closed, because we lacked the know-how, and then we didn’t have the cash to invest in maintaining and modernising our facilities, in order for these to be competitive. Therefore, ensuring adequate education is basic. This involves teaching people not only to know things, but also to know how to implement their knowledge. The other example I can give you is that of gas, which we now have in Mozambique. But we’ll soon be requesting someone to come in and install the simplest of factories, in order to make plastic cups, which could easily be done by us in Mozambique. Therefore, it’s necessary to train people to be able to do these kinds of things. We could talk about many other examples. We have timber, we have other minerals, even iron ore in some places. The question is how to transform all of this. I don’t mean this can be done overnight, but if over these past forty years we had placed more emphasis on actually teaching people how to do things, by now we would have qualified people, although we would still need foreign investors over a long period, with technology and the like. But we would have our own people, who could gradually become industrialists in various fields of activity”, says Joaquim Chissano.

“We need to be fair with ourselves. We began our development process from scratch, and so the priority was not exactly to train technicians, but to implement literacy programmes. People first needed to read and write, which is vital. Then you come to a second stage. We have also had destabilisation throughout this whole process, both of the economy and of the very education and training programme. This is why the results are not so good, yet. But I do know that the Government is reviewing the situation, in order to provide education with a new focus, since we now have many universities. This requires setting a new course for these universities, but not exclusively so: even for the lower classes, particularly secondary education. Secondary education should be about producing ‘doers’: people who come out to do things, not people who come out to seek employment and be told what to do, but who can do things by themselves. Education should also enable people to seek and provide solutions, which is what universities should be about. I didn’t go to university, but I sent thousands of people to university, in order for them to make the difference. They should not come to me and ask me what to do, or ask for employment. Instead, they should bring the solution. Therefore, education needs to be framed in such a way so as to bring this about: making people feel that they’re responsible for coming up with the solutions for their own country’s problems”, he adds.