The U.S. Government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is pleased to announce a five-year education program that will expand bilingual education in more than 4,000 primary schools in Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Niassa, and Zambezia provinces. Equitable and effective education delivery is hindered by limited access to quality education in remote areas, teacher shortages, and gender disparities.

The U.S. funded Improved Learning Outcomes in Primary Education (SABER) program partners with the Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH) and is the largest bilingual education program in Mozambique. SABER will serve as an operational model for sustainable bilingual education expansion across the country. The program will reach more than 2.2 million students in the participating provinces with the goal of improving their literacy and numeracy skills. SABER is built around training of teachers and school directors, improving learning materials, encouraging the use of reading diagnostic tools, and promoting greater parent and community engagement in education.

USAID Mozambique’s Mission Director, Helen Pataki, affirms the U.S. Government commitment to improving youth access to education. She said, “The United States will continue to support the Ministry’s plan to implement bilingual education so that students learn to read faster in their own language. In doing so, they understand numbers more rapidly and ultimately they feel more comfortable communicating their needs, and are therefore less likely to drop out of school.”

SABER is implemented by World Education and a consortium of local partners Associação Progresso, MEPT – Movimento Educação para Todos, NANA, and UATAF. SABER will coordinate with MINEDH at all levels to foster integration into the education system and sustainability of USAID’s $60.4 million investment in this program.

Over the next five years, USAID is investing more than $150 million into education and capacity building activities nationwide. Support for education is a critical component of the broader U.S. Government assistance in Mozambique. In close collaboration with the Government of the Republic of Mozambique, the U.S. Government provides more than $800 million in annual assistance to improve the quality of healthcare, education, to promote economic prosperity, and stability to support the overall development of the nation.