Analysts consider that the serious errors appearing in school textbooks in Mozambique are a reflection of a disorganized state that allows the infiltration of groups that try, and in some cases have succeeded, in taking over state business.

In February 2022, images of the page of one of the elementary school textbooks of the national school system began to circulate on social networks, Facebook in particular, with content that caused debate and discord, when it states, for example, that Zimbabwe borders the Red Sea.

The book is about natural sciences and addresses, among several other subjects, themes about the nature and evolution of the human species. The polemic did not fall on the whole book, but on just one page.

Some people believe that these mistakes, are not the result of ignorance or incompetence of education professionals, but of the fact that the affairs of the state have been taken over by gangs.

According to VOA, the director of the newspaper Carta de Moçambique, Marcelo Mosse, considers that these groups may exist, but in his view, the problem lies in the lack of control by the State, in this particular case, the Ministry of Education and Human Development.

For his part, the director of the Center for Investigative Journalism, Luís Nhachote, says that what is happening with schoolbooks is a reflection of what the Mozambican state is.

A broken state

"It's a broken State, and this is very serious when it comes to education, which is fundamental for the development of a country. We have a State that doesn't supervise the material that is used in the education system," he stressed, and then added, "one day we will have to change the Government, because things can't go on like this.

"Where are the education managers, where are the historians?" asks the director of the Center for Investigative Journalism, for whom the current challenges of education in Mozambique require strategic management committed to the collective interest.

However, for Marcelo Mosse, one of the solutions to the schoolbook issue is to revitalize the National Institute for the Development of Education (INDE).

It should be noted that the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education and Human Development, Gina Guibunda, announced for this Monday, the 30th, the beginning of the distribution of an erratum, for the problematic page.