Errors found in Mozambique textbooks despite assurance

Jose Tembe

BBC News, Maputo

Two same Portuguese language textbooks were shown with different cover pages

Errors have been detected in Mozambique textbooks for the second year despite recent assurances by the education ministry that it would not happen again.

Some errors were reported in Grade Six books last year – and this year the irregularities have surfaced in textbooks for the fifth and eighth grades.

A book published by Plura Editora for the Portuguese subject for Grade Eight starts on page 16, with the preceding pages misplaced elsewhere in the book.

On the first page, the book is printed upside down and a student would have to turn it over to read after opening the cover. Some other pages are also upside down.

In addition, photos of two same Portuguese subject textbooks for fifth grade with completely different covers have been shared on social media.

The first has a cover photograph of a girl smiling and dressed in a brown and white pullover, while the second shows a girl in a blue blouse and holding a pencil.

The errors were noted as schools throughout the country re-opened this Wednesday, with pictures of the errors being shared on social media.

A spokesman for the education ministry, Feliciano Mahalambe, recently gave assurances that the books that were due for distribution this year had been prepared and reviewed by a fully qualified team to avoid past mistakes.

A Grade Six book was withdrawn from schools last year after the discovery of errors including the erroneously listing of Mozambique as being in the East African region rather than a country in the Southern African region and showed landlocked Zimbabwe as bordering the Red Sea.

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