Nearly 40% of Mozambique’s population is illiterate.

Nearly 40% of Mozambique’s 30 million people are illiterate, Mozambique’s president said on Monday, noting that the majority are women.

“It is noted that currently the illiteracy rate among women is 49.4% and among men 27.2%, we need to think about why this is happening,” Filipe Nyusi said at the opening of the national education conference in Maputo, specifying that the overall illiteracy rate in the country is 39%.

According to the Mozambican head of state, the provinces of Nyasa, Cabo Delgado and Nampula in the north of the country, as well as the provinces of Tete and Zambezia in central Mozambique, have the highest illiteracy rates.

Filipe Nyusi also mentioned that the problem affects 50.8% of the rural population and 18% of the urban population, suggesting that the governors of the said provinces should identify and address educational deficiencies that contribute to low literacy rates.

The President of Mozambique also expressed concern about delays in academic education, citing statistics that show that it takes a child, on average, twice as long to complete primary education and that Mozambique’s average graduation rate is less than 30%.

“These delays in passing the levels increase the costs for families, for society, and also worsen the student-teacher ratio,” he stressed.

Also, according to the head of state, there is a “great disparity” in the number of university students scattered around the country: about 100,000 (42.4%) of the more than 237,000 students studying in higher education institutions are concentrated in the capital. Maputo.

According to data provided by the President, there are a total of 56 institutions of higher education in Mozambique, of which 22 are public and 34 are private.