Adult Education in Mozambique: Between Expectations and Possibilities

Abstract

Adult education has been and continues being an important area of education. In developing contexts, it is considered the way for social inclusion and poverty reduction and it is expected to provide knowledge, skills and values to youth and adults who did not get opportunity to education in their early age. Adult education also serves as a way to improve people’s competences throughout their life span. However, the concept of adult education in Mozambique has been used as literacy, referring only to the development of reading, writing and calculation skills. Using content analysis of documents, this research attempts to gain insight of adult education in the context of Mozambique. The findings reveal that adult education in the perspective of change and development as it is in Mozambique is linked to the objectives of poverty reduction and social inclusion. In this sense quality and relevance in adult education, as in other type of education, is needed to be able to develop functional knowledge and skills to youth and adults and allow them continuing learning in their life. Literacy and adult education have been considered an important field for social and economic development in the country, but contextual factors contribute to a narrow perspective of adult education, focusing mainly on literacy and numeracy as its final goal. Keywords: adult education, poverty reduction, social inclusion.