Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

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of the teachers. The principle of 'counting on our own resources' was
imperative, as school buildings, books, pens, chalk and maps had to be
improvised out of local materials. By the end of the armed struggle, 'more
that) 30.000 Mozambicans had received primary-level or literacy training
inside liberated Mozambique¹ (Marshall ,1985:166).

At Independence, the new Government was confronted with a dramatic
situation: the staggering 93% illiteracy rate may be taken as a symbol of
the colonial legacy well beyond the educational domain. The primary
concern was to dismantle the colonial system and spread the new model of
education through the whole of the country (Ganhao,1978). FEE.LI.MO. had
by then a considerable experience in education, gained, however, in the
very particular socio-political context of the liberated territories.

The Bill for the nationalization of all types of schools was one of the
first passed 'to facilitate the building throughout the country of an
educational system oriented and directed by the Party and the
State'(GanhSo,1978:33): this meant the end of racially discriminatory
types of schools, of inequalities in the distribution of resources and
teachers, and of the Catholic Church’s monopoly over African education.
Religious Instruction was eliminated from the curriculum. (C.F.A.,1984)
The enormous e∙pansion of education is documented in Tables 3.4 and 3.5
and in Figure 3.2. in the following pages.

Curricula had to be changed, and textbooks written, as hundreds of
teachers and missionaries returned to Portugal, and enthusiastic but
young cadres were confronted with the task of administering the system
for the whole country with a chronic lack of resources and qualified
personnel. Politically more important, education was to create the 'Mew
Man', who would transform Mozambique into a Socialist Country
(Vieira,1979). In the first years of 'crisis management' the basic
structure of the colonial system was retained (Johnston,1984:23), while
massive literacy and teacher education programmes were carried out: the
illiteracy rate dropped from 93% (1975) to 72% (1980 - C.M.P._t 1985).

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