According to bank documents, the project will focus on improving learning outcomes and boosting girls’ education, contributing to reduce current gender gaps while aiming at having a longer-term impact on development of Mozambique. Regional inequality will also be addressed by considering geographic targeting whenever possible. 

To achieve the Project’s development objective, interventions will be focused on the two main bottlenecks of the education cycle, as indicated by evidence. The first one occurs over the first three grades of primary schooling. Poor school readiness and weak learning outcomes lead to repetition, contribute to overcrowded classes and overage, and result in high dropout in Grades 2 and 3. The second bottleneck occurs in upper primary (after Grade 5) and the transition to lower secondary, affecting girls more than boys. Difficult access to school, poor infrastructure and lack of a “girl-friendly” environment at school, combined with high adolescent fertility and early marriage rates, contribute to girls quitting their education before graduating from primary and starting lower secondary.

The activities will be divided into three components: The first component will aim at improving learning outcomes for girls and boys in the first three grades of primary education. Interventions will be centered on reading skills in Portuguese for children by Grade 3. Although learning in other subjects also shows big deficiencies in Mozambique, there is a strong rationale for this project to focus on reading only. Firstly, reading is the foundation upon which other learning (numeracy, science, for example) is built. Reading is highly correlated with other academic skills and socioemotional skills (such as self-control). Secondly, experience shows that children who don’t read by late primary find it hard to catch up and are at risk of lagging behind. Lastly, reading has strong linkages with quality jobs later in life. The second component will focus on retaining girls in the last years of primary education and support their transition to lower secondary. The third component will aim at improving system efficiency and strengthening governance and management.

Borrower:
Ministry of Economy and Finance

Implementing Agency:
Ministry of Education and Human Development
Antuia Soverano
Director of Planning and Cooperation
Antuia.soverano@mined.gov.mz 

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