A text by the writer moçAmbassador Lino Eustaquio

Your Excellency, I am writing this letter to you as a humble and simple Mozambican citizen who is trying to make himself heard in the face of the repeated and already customary occurrences related to the assault and trivialization of our National Education System. 

Your Excellency, in recent times, we have witnessed, in a recurrent manner, the unprecedented exposure of serious flaws, faults and errors in the Education that is offered to our sons and daughters. We have seen and followed, lately, on the eve of the exams, information of their fortuitous circulation in Whatsapps and other social networks. What is expected, excellence, from an education system that allows itself to be subjected to such slip-ups?

Now it seems that it is the turn of the textbooks. It wasn't enough that the socially controversial content of the 7th grade Natural Science textbook was enough. It wasn't enough that the textbooks for the 2022 school year were delayed by a quarter. We are witnessing, at this moment, one more proof that the National Education System is on the edge of the precipice: the new textbooks (which arrived one quarter late, let us emphasize) have serious errors of content, inconceivable and intolerable, for those who see in education the hope and the key to development of the Mozambican nation. In fact, we have reached rock bottom.

Because, your honor, if we go down this road of amending and patching up the books, the flowers of the nation will surely wither.

Your Excellency, the people want to know: what future should we expect for Mozambique when situations like these are treated in a frivolous and passive manner? Incompetence of this kind cannot be normalized. It is true that there are many mercenaries, "lobbyists", parasites, and saboteurs in the service of the State. However, as the Father of this beautiful and promising nation called Mozambique, I ask you to put your house in order, otherwise we will continue to live the anarchy of each son doing whatever he wants, arriving at the time he wants, knowing that no corrective disciplinary measure will be imposed on him.

Mr President, I would like to appeal, by way of an epilogue, to your sensitivity to this subject that is affecting the dignity and the future of the Mozambican people. If indeed "education is the most powerful weapon that can be used to change the world," in the words of Mandela, I think that this is the most opportune moment to reflect on the direction and destination that we want to give to our education system. Because, Excellency, if we go down this path of patching up the books, the flowers of the nation will surely wither. And if this happens (I hope it does not) it will be the Apocalypse for Mozambique!

Sincerely

Lino Eustaquio