The president of the Angolan Students Movement (MEA), Francisco Teixeira, speaks of a budget of more than 20 billion kwanza, announced and made available by the Central Government, for the production of textbooks, which is used to say that the lack of distribution of these means of education, until then, was the responsibility of the Ministry of Education (MED).
“The lack of primary school books in schools, until now, is no longer a problem of the Central Government, but of the Ministry of Education itself, which does not send the textbooks to students”, accused Francisco Teixeira, having assured that the MEA has been carrying out frequent monitoring work in educational establishments of the aforementioned level. to the point of having attested that there was no fulfillment of this obligation, in any school.
Francisco Teixeira stressed that he would not be surprised if, after his testimonies, a scenario was forged in a state school of children with their class textbooks in their hands, and the consequent speech of school managers or parents confirming that students have had textbooks for some time. “We are already used to this theater,” said the president of the MEA, having reaffirmed that, as of the date of this report, no school has distributed books to children. It should be noted that, on October 16 of this year, on the occasion of the State of the Nation Address, the President of the Republic, João Manuel Lourenço, when referring to this subject, guaranteed that one million, 381 thousand and 744 primary school textbooks were already being distributed throughout the country.
It is because of this that Francisco Teixeira maintains his position on the blame that he throws at the Ministry of Education, as he himself made a point of mentioning, claiming that the pronouncements of the highest representative only justify his accusation. Asked if his organization has already contacted the Ministry of Education to find out the reasons for the lack of distribution of the textbooks, the president of the MEA revealed that they have already done so through a written request. “But the only answer we get from there is that the money from the books was spent on correcting them.
What is not very clear to us is whether this correction was made to the textbooks of past school years or those that are even projected for the current school year 2023/2024. Francisco Teixeira calls on the governing body of education in Angola to comply with the law that obliges to distribute books to children from 1st to 6th grade, completely and free of charge, so as not to further compromise the teaching and learning process. For him, for a long time now, private schools have preferred to find alternatives to cover this inconstancy of the MED, to the point of having conquered the services of the publisher Plural, which, annually, provides them with manuals prepared for the convenience of the reality they give to teaching in this sector.
MED promises to make a statement soon
Although the Secretary of State for Pre-School Education and Primary Education, Pacheco Francisco, offered to give an interview to this newspaper, to clarify this matter, on the morning of Thursday, 26, the alleged emergency agendas made him unavailable. In the meantime, he promised to make a statement in the coming days as soon as he finds a vacancy in his daily schedule. If this is the case, this newspaper will return to this theme in the next editions, presenting the version of the body that governs education in the country.
Source: O Pais