Berkley Center

Background:  As part of the Education and Social Justice Fellowship, in June 2017 undergraduate student Harshita Nadimpalli interviewed Jonas Zaquem Elias, a twelfth grade student at St. Ignatius of Loyola Secondary School (Escola Secundaria Inácio de Loiola, ESIL), Tete, Mozambique. Elias explains the challenges of teaching classes in Portuguese to non-native Portuguese speakers, as well as students' reactions to Portuguese instruction. He also discusses the impact of the civil war upon his family and in the region.

Can you please tell me your name, your role is in this community at ESIL, and a bit about your background before you came here?

I’m in a family of six siblings, and my father is a professor of geography, math, and history. My oldest sister is currently in Maputo doing a bachelor’s degree in topography. After I graduate, I want to study environmental engineering, which is possible in Maputo. I started studying when I was in seven years old in my region of Lifidizi, and then when I reached the sixth grade I started studying at a school about four kilometers away, and also studied seventh grade there. Then I did the eighth through tenth grade at the high school in the mission of Lifidizi [another Jesuit mission in the district]. The past year I came here for eleventh grade, and this year I’m in twelfth grade here.

ESIL is a Jesuit school, so what do you think differentiates a Jesuit education and separates it from other schools that may be secular or government schools?

There is a difference between Jesuit and secular schools. For example, at Jesuit schools we have experiences with different people such as professors that come from different countries so we learn a bit about other cultures. Also in Jesuit schools, many of the professors live here with us, which is different from public or state schools. Another difference is that there is development of our studies. In terms of our behavior, Jesuit schools are better. Although Lifidizi is a mission, after colonialism, the school there was given to the government, so now it’s a state school and not a Jesuit school. The discipline isn’t great at state schools. Here we have more rules and live normally.

Do you have examples to show this from your time here or at Lifidizi to explain this more?

Yes, with relationships between students. Sometimes girls get pregnant and have to leave school, because they cannot study when they are pregnant. Also the issue of physical aggression between students, which doesn’t exist here. Here, the issues of relationships and pregnancies, and physical aggression, don’t exist as a big problem because we are really happy and get along well. We all focus more on studies.

What do you think are distinct challenges that indigenous students face?

Here, the levels of education are a bit lower. If we study, we can reach the university level. It’s difficult. The student life is difficult. One of the problems is money. Many people especially in these rural areas cannot continue to study as a result of culture. There is a culture that when you are a girl, and you reach puberty, you can’t study more because you need to get pregnant, so they have a challenge in this zone of studying more. There are premature marriages, sometimes from 15 or 16 years old. So it is frequent that girls don’t study past high school.

You speak Chichewa, so in your opinion, what is the difficulty that students face in studying in Portuguese?

Many times when students don’t know Portuguese it’s a result of their family background that they came from. For example, it might be that the father and mother are farmers, and the grandparents didn’t go to school. So the student may not have a great feeling that they need to study. So one great challenge that we need to improve is the ability to speak Portuguese. English, too. Here we need to have better materials and conditions to study the language, and to learn Portuguese. In developed countries there are better learning materials.

And what are other challenges in your opinion?

In the classroom, the problem of students not understanding what the professor is saying as a result of language. If the student doesn’t understand Portuguese, they won’t understand, and they also won’t know how to respond, and the professor will have difficulty helping them. For me, I improved my Portuguese mostly with my friends. In eighth grade, I was friends with people who were from Maputo and Beira, so they spoke really well in Portuguese because they are from the cities. So we always spoke in Portuguese and sometimes in the house my father and sisters speak to me in Portuguese, and that’s how I learned the language. Here also I speak with some of my friends in Portuguese, while others speak in Chichewa.

What are opportunities and positive things that local students have to help them?

Well, at ESIL we have really good professors with degrees who are equipped to teach. At other schools, it’s less so. They are well trained so we understand them well, and they are just trained to teach really well.

For these issues we discussed, how does ESIL address the challenges?

In terms of the Portuguese language, from the moment we arrived here, with the previous director of the school, we used to have a medal system. Everyone had a medal, and the moment you spoke Chichewa or other native language, you had to wear this medal. It was not a good thing—it was embarrassing. So it was to help avoid speaking Chichewa. The medal was for people who didn’t speak Portuguese, and a way to develop the Portuguese language. So each person tried to speak Portuguese to avoid having to wear this medal. Also, in school, the professors prohibit us from speaking in a language other than Portuguese.

How do you think ESIL is involved with the community in this area? What is the interaction between the school and the community?

I think there is involvement because ESIL is in a zone that has a lower level of education so it is close by to give access and opportunity to people who don’t have the same educational opportunities otherwise. Here in Wile and Njalanjira, there is no secondary school nearby, and they have to travel very far and leave their houses. So this facilitates a closer education for the Chividzi area.

What was the reception of the community when ESIL began?

Many people liked it, because I always say that people were really worried because it’s difficult to find a school that’s got as good of a quality of education as here. So people were content. They know that Jesuits are always known for having good education. So many people were happy about this.

How would you define the concept of social justice?

For me, I see it as doing something to equalize things. For example, if we were distributing shirts to people, according to social justice we shouldn’t put one person over the other. If we were distributing cups of flour, and we were giving each person two cups of flour, each person has to get two cups of flour. We can’t give three or four cups to one person—justice is to make things equal, to give the same quantity.

What about in cases when some people have more than others?

For this question, it’s based in philosophy. Justice, as defined by Karl Popper, an American philosopher, is that it shouldn’t be equal. Because there are people who are less rich than others. But in terms of distribution first we have to see the person. In society there are people who are really poor and others who aren’t. In terms of distributing food or other things, we have to differentiate. If we are going to distribute three cups of flour to people, those who have more can receive one or two cups, because otherwise, the inequality will just continue. So there can be justice without complete equality. I agree with Karl Popper. For example in this school here, in terms of distributing notebooks or pens, there are students who already have pens, and others who don’t. There are students who come from richer homes and others who come from poorer homes. In terms of distributing to them, first we should consult and ask what their situation is. We cannot give the exact same to everyone. We should give to the people who have less and give less to the people who have more. Because if we give the same to everyone we will be prejudicing against the students who have less, because we’ll be benefiting the students who already have more and allowing them to just keep being richer.

What do you think is the relation between learning Portuguese and the concept of social justice and development in this community?

I see it as good to learn Portuguese in society. Because in other zones, people don’t speak the same native language or Portuguese, and if you don’t it becomes difficult to share your opinions with them. Portuguese allows us to go to other places such as Tete and Maputo, and if you don’t know Portuguese that becomes difficult. There is a necessity to learn it to communicate with others.

Do you think there is a resistance by some students to learning Portuguese, because native language is so strongly related to native cultures?

For me I think it’s good to have an obligation to speak Portuguese. Because we will not develop without it. Because we have students here in the twelfth grade who don’t know how to speak any Portuguese. This is a huge problem for us. When we leave school, everyone is always speaking their native languages at home. Until twelfth grade. So that’s how they arrive at the twelfth grade without speaking any Portuguese. How are they going to learn if they never speak Portuguese? In other schools they always speak Portuguese inside class too, but the students, as soon as they leave the classroom, speak their mother tongues.

So how is it that students who don’t speak Portuguese even arrive at the twelfth grade and pass their tests to get to this level?

This is complicated. There are some students who can take their tests in Portuguese and can read decently but have a harder time speaking orally in Portuguese because they don’t practice or use it.

In the zones we come from, people are always speaking Cinyanja. For students it’s difficult to develop Portuguese capabilities. For example, we are in school right now. But in a few months we’ll be on vacation from school and return to our houses. There, it’s always Cinyanja. So there needs to be a way for them to continue to practice Portuguese. So it’s better if the parents can speak in Portuguese to them too, but parents can’t always speak it. And the student has to have their own interest in learning Portuguese. If they don’t, it is difficult.

Why is it that some students don’t want to learn Portuguese or don’t understand the value of it?

Many students don’t think they need to learn Portuguese. For them, they believe that after the twelfth grade, they aren’t going to work or have a job or go to university, so they don’t care. Let’s say a student has a dream to do something—be an engineer, professor, doctor—then they will have the interest to learn Portuguese because they have a reason to. But there are students who are only here because their parents say they have to go to school but on their own they have no desire to study

How did the colonial past and the colonial and civil wars affect this area? The political landscape, the landscape of education and social justice, and the students and communities here.

Colonialism here in Mozambique has been really strong. Really heavy. The Portuguese have always been seen as bad people here, in terms of colonialism. It was a system of forced slavery. Work, but no pay. Mozambican people worked for the Portuguese. Mozambican people did not have the right to study, especially in higher education such as university. Only the children of Portuguese people could. Mozambicans couldn’t study, because if Africans studied, they were afraid we would revolt against them. So you could only study from first to fourth grade. Then the children of the Portuguese could continue study until university, but we couldn’t. There were some opportunities to study, but not always. 

Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane was the first president of the FRELIMO party. He went to study in the United States of America and then came back to Mozambique where he started to create parties against colonialism. Mozambique started to look to independence. Since 1962, Mondlane started to try to liberate Mozambique. In 1962, we had three parties: UNAMI, UDENAMO, and MANU. One in the north, the center, and the south. The region we are in now would be the center; Maputo would be the south; and Cabo Delgado would be in the north. In 1963 these three parties joined into one party, which is now FRELIMO. They joined and chose their president, Eduardo Mondlane, who became the first president of FRELIMO. He studied well and came here to Mozambique. In 1964, the war started, between the Portuguese and Mozambican people. It went on for about 10 years, and after that, we defeated the Portuguese and became free. The Portuguese left here for Portugal.

After that, the civil war started, between Mozambicans themselves, as a result of the political regime. In the moment that the Portuguese left, the first president of Mozambique was Samora Machel. Mondlane was assassinated. So Samora Machel was his substitute as the first president of Mozambique. Then there was a fight between Mozambicans, for about 16 years, between RENAMO and FRELIMO. In 1992, the war politically was over and we were free. The war stopped and ended with the Rome General Peace Accords. In 1994, the general elections began for a vote and FRELIMO won. Samora Machel had died. So he was substituted with Joaquin Chissano until 2004. After that, there was another election, because the term is five years each, and he won two terms. Then he was replaced, with another president until 2014. But the political party has not changed from FRELIMO. With Obama and Donald Trump, the political party in office shifted. But here, it has never changed. We have changed presidents, but RENAMO has never governed or won.

Why do you think RENAMO has never won office?

That’s difficult to say. I think many people don’t like it—RENAMO.

Can you speak more about the impact of these political parties—RENAMO and FRELIMO—and the impact of the civil war on this region and on your family?

The major impact was that many people stopped studying. In the 26 years of war, many people lost their studies and many people died. Children were orphaned; it was a huge negative impact. People who also had jobs lost their jobs. People who had money and a quality of life and better life conditions such as a house lost everything. So there was no economic growth in this time. People didn’t have a house, money, jobs, anything, and their own government was using the money to buy arms, grenades, etc.

For my family, my father lost our house. He was a teacher in Vila Ulongue at that time and in our Lifidizi area, everything was destroyed and burned. So we lost good things: my father lost the house, beds, and everything was robbed. There was no control. My father and mother fled to Malawi where he lived for a year before returning here and living in Vila Ulongue. Now the village is controlled by FRELIMO and is pretty safe.

What is the feeling of your parents towards the civil war? Do they still talk about its effects? Do you think it is safe now here in this area and in the school?

There is still a negative effect of the war. My father lost good things—the house, everything inside it, the radio, many things. There was a fire that burned everything.

There is political tension. That still continues, between RENAMO and FRELIMO. When we watch television here, you can see that political tension still continues. But it is better now. The president of RENAMO, Afonso Dhlakama, signed an accord. And in 2019, there will be a new election for president. So for now we are normal. We’re not doing great, we’re not doing bad—just normal.

How do you think that ESIL can continue to improve?

I think the problem of water and a source of energy. In terms of education, we should improve a lot. In terms of education, the professors have been good until now, and well trained.

Who is your favorite professor? Why does he inspire you?


The geography professor, he really inspires me a lot. Because he spoke with me and he is very intelligent. During his studies he has won many scholarships, from eighth grade all the way until university. He is a good professor. He also told me that last year he won a scholarship to study in the United States. So I am really inspired him. He is a good example.

What are ways that you would improve education in Mozambique in general, if you could change any three things without limitation?

First, I would change that from basic primary school to seventh grade, they don’t have the same conscience in schooling that I’ve received since I moved to the Jesuit school here—studying a lot as if we are in university. I think there is a great desire here to study a lot. And the conscience to study. I have seen other people who inspire me. I think that in primary school, it’s not as much as here because the people and professors are less qualified.