Mozambique child. © Steve Evans

Mozambique is a Portuguese-speaking country of south-eastern Africa with about 23.5 million inhabitants. It gained its independence from Portugal in June 1975. In the past 20 years since the end of a two-decade long civil war, Mozambique has emerged as one of Africa's best-performing economies. Nonetheless, poverty is widespread and the country ranks 185 out of 186 countries based on the 2013 UNDP Human Development Report.

Mozambique joined the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in 2003 with its 2000-2005 Education Sector Plan. Peace dividends and economic reforms have helped the country emerged as one of Africa's best performers. However, Mozambique faces many learning challenges in producing the highly educated and skilled labor required by large direct foreign investments in mining, energy and construction.

Mozambique is implementing its 2012-2016 Sector Plan emphasizes inclusive education and technical training. It seeks to (i) ensure inclusion and equity in access to and retention in school; (ii) improve student learning; and (iii) assuring good governance of the national education system. The endorsement package of the revised sector plan will be disseminated on the GPE website as soon as its appraisal by partners is concluded.

In the past decade, Mozambique has demonstrated a strong commitment to education. In 2010, about 20% of the budget was allocated to education. About 55% of the education budget is allocated to primary education.

GPE principles help Mozambique and its partners coordinate better their efforts for results. The Government leads a Local Education Group formed with representatives from the World Bank (Coordinating Agency), Spain, DFID, Irish Aid, UNICEF, CIDA, USAID, UNESCO, Save the Children, Action Aid and Oxfam among others.

GPE awarded Mozambique a grant in 2007 for US$ 70 million. The World Bank was the Supervising Entity and the modality used was the Sector Pooled Fund (FASE). A second GPE grant for US$ 90 million was approved in 2010 with a co-financing of US$ 71 million from the World Bank (Supervising Entity).

Results over the period 2004-2011 include doubling of enrollments at both the primary and secondary levels with increasing gender parity. Between 2008 and 2011, the number of children completing primary school dropped slightly from 58% to 51%, a trend the government is eager to reverse. The gender parity index has steadily improved and stands at 0.92 (2011). The youth literacy rate was 72% in 2010. The number of out-of-school children dropped from 14% to 9% between 2008 and 2012.

There are also good improvement in learning outcomes thanks to smaller class sizes, larger and more effective domestic funding with increase in non-salary spending. The number of primary school teachers rose from 59,000 in 2005 to 98,000 in 2012.The primary to lower secondary school transition rate increased from 68% in 2008 to 71% in 2012.