Tackling low secondary school completion rates in Mozambique

Education attainment level

The education attainment level is a good indicator of a society’s capacity to solve its problems, provide its members with decent living conditions, and guarantee  sustainable development. In many developing countries, the labour force has a low education attainment level. This is because too many youths leave secondary school without any recognition of the learning they may have received. In 2010 as many as 92% of secondary school-goers in Mozambique did not complete their full secondary education.

Factors causing low school completion rates

I am convinced that the majority of students who attend school, ideally want to emerge from the system with a certificate of completion. Especially where the education was not free of charge and had to be paid for personally. This therefore raises questions about the low completion rates for secondary schools in Mozambique in particular, and in Sub-Saharan Africa in general. Why do students drop out or fail to successfully complete school? Surely, such a large number of students cannot all have dropped out or failed due to low academic capacities?

To gain insight into the possible causes of this low completion rate, I interviewed various stakeholders in the Mozambican education sector(7.5 MB). The possible factors they mentioned are discussed in the following sections.

Large student-to-teacher ratios

The high number of pupils in classes (in some cases even around 100) reduces the possibility of personal attention to students who are having difficulty with grasping the learning material. The workload for teachers is very high in these cases and not all personal learning deficits can be resolved. The end result is unmotivated students and a high drop-out rate or failure rate during tests and examinations.

Secondary school in Mozambique is organised in two cycles: a 3-year lower cycle and a 2-year upper cycle. Drop-out rates are particularly high during the first years of a cycle, which leads to somewhat smaller classes in the final year. The lower student-to-teacher ratios in the final year (e.g. 2 teachers per 30 students) make it easier to control the quality of the education in this year than in prior years.

The paradox here is that the large school classes are not due to a shortage of trained teachers. The quantity of trained teachers in Mozambique is currently adequate. However, not all trained teachers are teaching due to budget constraints and so they are absorbed elsewhere in the labour market. In 2010 alone, 8,512 students graduated as teachers from the Pedagogical University, and this figure excludes those who graduated from the University of Eduardo Mondlane and other teacher-training institutions.

The timing of examinations

Even though control of the learning process is better in the smaller classes of the final year of a cycle, the timing of the certification examinations can still cause a problem for the achieved pass rate. Certification examinations are held only in the final year of a given cycle. At this point, many students have forgotten the material they learned in prior years. Yet they are tested on this material as well. Even if the students study hard for the final examination during their final year, they have an overwhelming task of going through three or two years’ worth of study material in one go and understanding or remembering it for the final examination.

Although students are tested at the end of each study year of a cycle, the results of these tests are not taken into account when appraising the learning outcomes during certification in the final year. The final year examination is, therefore, the only determining factor for a student’s learning outcomes from a given cycle.

A modular examination system which takes into  account the test results of students at the end of each study year, in addition to the final year examination results, would perhaps produce better certification outcomes and pass rates.

Teaching efficiency

Another factor that could be driving low pass rates for the secondary education level is the fact that not all teachers manage to teach the full curriculum for a given cycle. Yet the final examination takes into account all modules within the curriculum.

Examination methodology

Furthermore, in the initial years of a given cycle, testing is not conducted on the basis of multiple choice-type questions and so students are not used to this methodology of testing. Yet, in the final year certification examination, testing occurs on the basis of multiple choice questions. The anxiety that students may already feel when writing such an important examination is exacerbated by being confronted by an unfamiliar type of testing. The Minister of Education has recently made a recommendation to implement uniform national or provincial examinations for all schools as preparation for the final examination with immediate effect.

Teacher quality

In some instances the quality of teacher training is inadequate and needs to be improved. This has consequences on education delivery in schools and the ability of students to grasp the learning material and achieve the learning objectives intended in the school curricula.

Social issues

Social issues (family and societal pressures) also have an influence on school drop-out rates and low pass rates. The capability of some families to help children in their homework or provide overall educational support and mentoring is limited. This is particularly true in rural areas where early marriage, religious beliefs and work commitments are not conducive to good education participation and results for children.

Career guidance

Career guidance at the secondary education level is limited, which results in students not being able to link the usefulness of the material they are learning to their future lives, career prospects and participation in the labour market. This can lead to dropping out or lack of motivation. Current TVET reforms in Mozambique are addressing this for the technical and vocational streams of secondary education, but no measures are available yet for the general education stream.

School fees

Contrary to many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, lack of finance to attend secondary school is not the major problem contributing to the high drop-out rate in Mozambique. Although secondary school students pay their own fees, the law makes provision for fee reduction or fee waiving for students in special circumstances who are unable to afford the fees.