The voyage of Vasco da Gama in marked the arrival of the Portuguese, who began a gradual process of colonisation and settlement in After over four Centuries of Portuguese control and civil war, Mozambique gained independence in , becoming the: 'People's Republic of Mozambique'.
After only two years of independence, the country descended into an intense and protracted civil war lasting from to In , Mozambique held its first multiparty elections, and has since remained a relatively stable presidential republic, although it still faces deployment and use of soldiers in situations other than war. Mozambique is a scenic country, endowed with rich and extensive natural resources.
The country's economy is based largely on agriculture, but industry is growing, mainly food and beverages, chemical manufacturing and aluminium and petroleum production.
The tourism sector is also expanding. South Africa is Mozambique's main trading partner and source of foreign direct investment, while Belgium, Brazil, Portugal and Spain are also among the country's most important economic partners.
Since After , with the forming of FRELIMO, the launching of the armed struggle for national independence, and the change in the Portuguese economy, Salazar's colonial educational policies came under review. Primary school was made compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 12; secondary schools were expanded and technical schools were created.
Agricultural education was stressed. General studies offered during the s later became the Faculty of General Studies, which was then designated as part of the university. The incoming FRELIMO government declared that education was a right for all people and that all education should serve and defend the interests of the majority, the workers and peasants—those who had been most disadvantaged by the discrimination and elitism of the previous centuries.
Adult literacy projects were a means to mobilize the people in the liberated areas, to bring new freedom to people who had long been derided for their ignorance yet had been prevented from access to the educational system. Despite its association with the oppression of the colonizers, and because of its potential to unite diverse populations, Portuguese became the language of the liberation struggle.
New knowledge and increased access to education empowered the Mozambican people to fight for their liberation. After the beginning of the armed struggle in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique in , a network of "bush schools" was established and, by , more than 10, children were enrolled in FRELIMO primary schools. In the years that followed, teachers set up schools in other provinces, carrying on FRELIMO's vision, which saw education not as the creator of a national elite, but as a means to serve the people.
By more than 20, children were enrolled in the four-year primary school program in the various provinces. More than people were enrolled in the fifth to eighth year classes and training courses for primary teachers that had been running since , and more than students were doing postsecondary level courses abroad on FRELIMO scholarships.
The transitional government established on September 25, , set up countrywide Dynamizing Groups that were to provide literacy activities throughout the country.
Literacy, defined here as the ability to read and write Portuguese, was seen as the primary means to liberate the creative initiative of the Mozambican people and empower them to attain complete independence and work towards national reconstruction. By the end of the s, illiteracy rates were estimated at 60 percent. Unfortunately, Mozam bique's move to greater freedom and prosperity through education was beset by obstacles resulting from its geopolitical position in southern Africa; the effects of racial capitalism; the hostility of members of the international community to its socialist option; and the concerted challenge to its attempts to free the creative energies of its people through education.
When Samora Machel's FRELIMO party came to power, he had established a government based on the principles of scientific socialism and committed himself to actively engaging in the elimination of white minority governments.
The white government in Rhodesia, which once regarded the neighboring government as an ally, now saw it as an enemy, especially when Mozambique provided a haven to ZAPU and ZANLA forces and the base for guerrilla operations against the country. Zimbabwe's military strikes and hot pursuit operations into the Tete province were devastating not only for ZANU and ZANLA camps but also for the villages that were inhabited by civilian refugees seeking to escape the fighting.
The situation in Tete was compounded by South Africa's political and economical interest in the region. The giant hydroelectric complex at the Cahora Basa Dam on the Zambezi River had been constructed by a consortium largely financed and assisted by the South African government in Pretoria. The Cahora Basa scheme provided electrical power for South Africa that sold some of it back to users in southern Mozambique, especially Maputo. Many fled to neighboring Zambia where they were held in refugee camps.
One such refugee camp was Ukwimi. Members of the International Catholic Child Bureau worked with teachers and children in eight preschools in different villages within the Ukwimi Settlement. Both the children and the teachers had witnessed the most horrendous killings, which affected both teaching and learning. Teachers were first taught how to come to terms with their own distress and then, using the mechanisms of Mozambican culture, to devise methods to help the children cope with their memories, with the loss of family members and of their homeland, and with the pain they had seen inflicted on others or had experienced themselves.
Teachers were then taught to move away from the rigid rote system they had used before and to adopt new methods of teaching, involving the children in the learning process. Primary school teachers accompanied their pupils through a similar process, with the one difference that here the teachers were Zambian nationals who first had to learn to understand the concept of stress and recognize its symptoms. In the Ukwimi refugees repatriated to Mozambique, bringing their newfound knowledge and confidence back to a country where education plays a vital role in addressing the need for reconstruction of personal lives and societal structures.
Ports and terminals: Beira, Maputo, Nacala. Airports: 98 International disputes: South Africa has placed military units to assist police operations along the border of Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique to control smuggling, poaching, and illegal migration.
Major sources and definitions. Mozambique stretches for 1, mi 2, km along Africa's southeast coast. It is nearly twice the size of California. The country is generally a low-lying plateau broken up by 25 sizable rivers that flow into the Indian Ocean. The largest is the Zambezi, which provides access to central Africa. Bantu speakers migrated to Mozambique in the first millennium, and Arab and Swahili traders settled the region thereafter.
It was explored by Vasco da Gama in and first colonized by Portugal in By , the Portuguese had control of all of the former Arab sultanates on the east African coast. Portuguese colonial rule was repressive. Guerrilla activity began in , and became so effective by that Portugal was forced to dispatch 40, troops to fight the rebels. A cease-fire was signed in Sept. He died in a plane crash in , and was succeeded by his foreign minister, Joaquim Chissan. On Jan. The guerrilla movement weakened President Chissan's attempts to institute socialism, which he then decided to abandon in A new constitution was drafted calling for three branches of government and the granting civil liberties.
A cease-fire agreement signed in Oct. And Angola, in the middle of civil war, becomes independent in November The colonial withdrawal from Mozambique is exclusively a matter of negotiation between Portugal and Frelimo, the only organized resistance movement. In September a provisional government is put in place, made up of representatives from both sides.
When the eventual constitution is published, in June , it states baldly that the president of Frelimo will also be president of the new nation, to be known as Mozambique. By this time the Frelimo president is Samora Machel, who has taken over the leadership after the assassination of Mondlane in The nature of a one-party Marxist state is made unmistakably clear when details of the people's assembly are known.
It will have members nominated by Frelimo. The character of the incoming regime prompts the rapid departure of nearly all the Portuguese settlers, but Frelimo policies are not much more welcome among rural Africans. The forced labour and racial discrimination of colonialism is now replaced by the herding of peasants into communal villages on collective state farms. Collectivism proves economically disastrous, and Frelimo's troubles are compounded by the unremitting hostility of the neighbouring white regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia.
A brutally violent campaign by Renamo in rural districts, combined with raids across the border by Rhodesian and South African forces because of Mozambique providing a safe haven for Patriotic Front and ANC exiles , means that by the mids Frelimo has lost control of much of the country.
In Frelimo comes to an agreement with South Africa. In the following year Frelimo also recognizes the failure of its agricultural policy. Collective farms are dismantled in a return to family-based plots of land. The activities of Renamo are very little reduced by the withdrawal of South African support.
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