"An inclusive program is also underway to give greater opportunity for girls to access school, especially in rural areas that due to cultural barriers and social stereotypes are, from an early age, marginalized and pushed into child labor and early pregnancy," said the head of state during the Unesco Global Forum on Education.
Admitting that the education sector has been quite affected by the pandemic, he revealed that more than 13 million students enrolled in the current school year "found themselves temporarily confined at home and deprived of access to classes.
"We decided to gradually return to classes, starting on October 5, and for this purpose we have drawn up a school calendar readjusted with the respective minimum programs and methodological guidelines," he explained.
However, despite the "gloomy picture" that the country lives due to the covid-19 pandemic, the President of the Republic made it known that Angola "is not resigned to the aggressiveness of the virus and with resilience has been implementing measures to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic in the most diverse areas of social life".
One of the measures adopted to combat this problem was the allocation of "extraordinary funds" to schools in order to ensure the "sustainability of the teaching process and return to students, teachers and families hope and confidence in a safe school life.
In his speech, João Lourenço also highlighted the 'Valor Criança' program, which is being implemented in three provinces of the country as part of the Integrated Social Action Management System, "whose action focuses on preventing malnutrition and promoting child health, birth registration, and insertion into the education system, providing direct financial support to the poorest families.
He also emphasized that the program to strengthen social protection through cash transfers (Kwenda), developed in partnership with the World Bank, is having a positive impact on the lives of families and communities.
"Another priority is to train and empower teachers and school managers to deal with the new school approach in the context of covid-19, giving them tools to put their action on behalf of life and knowledge construction," he said.
He also made it known that despite the "various constraints", the Executive is developing "a program aimed at massifying the use of new information and communication technologies and the Internet in secondary schools, having already been approved the modality of distance and semi-presential education".
"The process of reviewing, updating and improving textbooks and related tools for general education is in its final stages, and in this way it is estimated to promote and improve teaching and learning," he added.
