Remarks on Entitlement in Mozambique’s Education System

Before I started teaching at the local University about a month ago, I remember looking forward to my first day with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. While I myself am a health volunteer and therefore hadn’t had much experience in the Mozambican classroom, I had previously heard the horror stories from the education volunteers about the school system in this country: the rampant corruption, cheating, endless amounts of red tape within the administration, and so on.

You can imagine how relieved I was when, because of Sagrada Familia’s make-up and leadership, I had few run-ins with these kinds of morally objectionable situations that my colleagues have often discussed. At the same time, that is not to deny the fact that I have indeed had my ‘run-ins.’

The fact of the matter is that grade inflation is a problem. I’m not claiming that it is a frequent issue at the University, but I can say that many of my students have most definitely come from a background in which they are rewarded for what they frankly do not deserve. Of course, to speak from a cynical point of view, the situation makes more sense when the focus is on what’s at stake for the school. ‘The system is weak and the professors are poorly educated? Well, let’s compensate with boosting grades around the board.’ ‘If we’re turning out classrooms of kids with poor marks, then our school is ultimately going to look bad, right? Maybe if we just give them enough points they can pass on to the next grade and we can try again.’ Instead of fixing the problem at hand, it seems that the situation is merely given a band-aid.

As has been evidenced by my own classroom, the effects of such an education system can be crippling to the work ethic and general mindset of the students as individuals and as a body. Rather than the school being a place to challenge oneself to work hard and to learn, it becomes for many something resembling a prison: ‘Just put in the time and eventually you can get out and move on with your life.’ Education is not respected or celebrated, and therefore it ultimately fails.

Now, with my own class I have encountered these challenges with a few of my students, where its obvious that grades are more important than the material and I as the teacher am expected to be very ‘generous’ with my policies and grading procedures. My response, which has been working thus far, has been to keep putting the focus on them. “You were sick the day before the quiz? Well, you knew about it and it’s your responsibility to get the notes.” “You want to blame me for your bad quiz grades, but you have not come for help at all since class began in July.” You are ultimately responsible for your own education.

In these ways aforementioned, amongst others, I am trying to accomplish a few things. I am very focused on demonstrating responsibility to my students, but also am attempting to push an improved work ethic. I promise I do not get my jollies from failing large chunks of my students or taking off points from their average because of excessive absences and tardiness. Rather, I truly hope that they can learn something valuable from my class outside of the actual material and that they can take some of those life lessons with them in their future endeavors. I hope that when they graduate from this teacher trainer college that they take these ideas and use them in their own classrooms. Since the openness to learn brings about knowledge and knowledge is indeed power, I ultimately (and possibly naively) hope that this desire becomes contagious.