**5. Final considerations**

In this article, we tried to reflect on the access and permanence of students in General Secondary Education in Mozambique. For this, it was made a bibliographical review and (some) interviews with the teachers, managers, and students of the schools involved.

In fact, it was observed the changes and evolution of the Mozambican educational system over the last 40 years as a nation-state. The referred changes and evolution have been articulated with international educational policies, and reconstituting itself in each time and moment of its evolution.

The richness of the school context was also highlighted in terms of how teachers and students communicated, interpreted, and absorbed the official curriculum.

In this research, it was concluded that in Mozambique, children have access to school, although the persistent doubt is about the number of children who remain in it and those who were approved and about the number of those who were excluded before entering, and finally, those that are excluded within the educational process.

In reports presented by school managers during the balance meetings, although they reported on dropouts, we found that the causes for dropping out of school were not mentioned. This means that the school is not worried or prepared to know the reasons for dropping out.

We understand that in the view of this dropout situation, schools should open up more and more with a view to investigate their practices that may advance the abandonment of students in school. Schools should also be research sites about their activities and/or practices and not just teaching.

In a study carried out by Osório e Silva [16] discussing the dropout of the girl in school, the author pointed out that the biggest problem is that the causes of their withdrawal were not identified so that precise and active interventions could be made. The only thing that was reported was that the girls' withdrawal was superior than the withdrawal of boys, which this study did not confirm.

On the other hand, students' attitudes were a clear demonstration that each class had its own way of being and being, a peculiar characteristic that distinguished itself from others and,

Unfortunately, some school teachers who were the locus of the research advocated in their interventions at the meetings that it was necessary to homogenize and unify their practices through procedures unique to learners. These are situations that reinforce with what Sacristán [23] stated when he indicates that the school with regard to the schooling functioning patterns tends to homogenize. The school has been, and is, a standardization space. However, it is different, each class presents itself culturally different, although it has some aspects in common, but when analyzed differently, there are differences that deserve to be repaired, respected, and considered. Indeed, any attempt to homogenize, treat students as equal or devoid of dif-

In this article, we tried to reflect on the access and permanence of students in General Secondary Education in Mozambique. For this, it was made a bibliographical review and

In fact, it was observed the changes and evolution of the Mozambican educational system over the last 40 years as a nation-state. The referred changes and evolution have been articulated with international educational policies, and reconstituting itself in each time and moment of

The richness of the school context was also highlighted in terms of how teachers and students

In this research, it was concluded that in Mozambique, children have access to school, although the persistent doubt is about the number of children who remain in it and those who were approved and about the number of those who were excluded before entering, and

In reports presented by school managers during the balance meetings, although they reported on dropouts, we found that the causes for dropping out of school were not mentioned. This means that the school is not worried or prepared to know the reasons for dropping out.

We understand that in the view of this dropout situation, schools should open up more and more with a view to investigate their practices that may advance the abandonment of students in school. Schools should also be research sites about their activities and/or practices

In a study carried out by Osório e Silva [16] discussing the dropout of the girl in school, the author pointed out that the biggest problem is that the causes of their withdrawal were not identified so that precise and active interventions could be made. The only thing that was

(some) interviews with the teachers, managers, and students of the schools involved.

communicated, interpreted, and absorbed the official curriculum.

finally, those that are excluded within the educational process.

therefore, there was no possibility for its generalization and or homogenization.

ferences leads to school failure.

178 Open and Equal Access for Learning in School Management

**5. Final considerations**

its evolution.

and not just teaching.

According to what is the configuration of the schools surveyed, the students left school because they are not yet prepared to welcome and/or negotiate with their differences that spread in the same. Teachers and school administrators, on the whole, sought, tirelessly, to treat all students as equal, identical, or common.

The data produced by the two schools, beyond coinciding with the Thaphan's study [24], also coincide with that of Tura [25] when this argues that the school instituted a specific culture that has patterns of relationship and social coexistence, Their behavioral expectations, their rites, their discipline, their work and leisure hours, and their didactic-pedagogical procedures, an entire repertoire that is re-elaborated by the educational subjects in their daily life and constitutes the school culture of each teaching institution.

It was interesting in this research to relate social inequalities to school inequalities. In fact, data were produced about socioeconomic situation of students by both schools. According to the data produced by the two schools, it was noted that the students came from social classes considered to be low, with low socioeconomic conditions, and a low level of schooling. Their parents mostly developed low-income jobs, often only men were employed.

Although the school recognizes that it receives pupils with differences in the family provenance of students, as well as the academic and professional situation of parents and/or official representative, the culture and philosophy of the school were based on a context of schools with elite standards and the dominant culture, modeled on schools in the downtown with classes of about 45 students, schools equipped with libraries and laboratories, classrooms equipped with furniture, trained and experienced teachers, etc.

Thus, the curriculum in schools ignores the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of students, who are constantly permeating and characterizing schools. As a result of such practice, there is greater evasion and disapproval in schools, and as a measure, when the pupil failed more than twice, he/she was transferred to the evening course, as if he received the useless ones. In fact, the night course seemed to us to be seen as a period of re-socialization of students, in order to reconnect with the curriculum since this shift has been a subterfuge to receive students who have been disapproved.

As it turns out, students whose parents have a low level of schooling makes it difficult for the children to have a satisfactory situation in school, since within the family there are no people able to support them in their school activities or to have them as models or references. The existence of a family context characterized by a study support environment allows the students to have better school performance [22].

Another important issue, which is referenced by Dubet et al. [26], relates to school segregation and school inequalities. According to the authors, the inequalities among the students depend on the level of social and school segregation of the institutions. That is to say, the way the school receives, distributes, and treats the students in school can also be decisive in its insertion and in minimizing the differences of cultural capital.

One of the major problems of teaching and learning process that the teacher faces is the differences between the students, their styles, and learning rhythms [27] that in the attempt to homogenize of these characteristics ends up marginalizing many students in the classroom and concentrating only on those whose school culture approaches the familiar hegemonic culture. Therefore, the homogenization of students in the classroom, or even in school, in general, can be the main reason for the stigmatization of students labeled as disinterested, who do not dedicate themselves, do not do jobs, weak, among other categories.

I would also like to thank CNPq (Brazil) and the Postgraduate Dean of the State University of Rio de Janeiro for supporting us. Thanks also to the Faculty of Postgraduate Education for the accompaniment and attention granted during my training, conditions that enabled our training and the possibility of carrying out this research in pleasant conditions. We cannot forget to thank the Mozambican Government for giving us the opportunity to perform research on

Curricular Policy and Access and Permanence of Students in School

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70790

We are grateful to the schools being researched (teachers, students, and managers) because without their cooperation, collaboration, and consent, it would not have been possible to produce the data we needed and therefore the study would not have been possible, in particular

We thank the professors Cristina Tembe, Olivia Matusse, Francisco Januário, Feliciana Eduardo, Inocente Mutumucuio, Lisboa Machavane, Fernando Francisco, Francisco Fernando, Sérgio Mendes, and all the professors at the Faculty of Education of the Universidade Eduardo

I thank MCT-CNPq for the scholarship and my guidance counselor Maria de Lourdes Rangel

\*, Maria de Lourdes Rangel Tura2

[1] Moçambique. Presidential Degree No 24/90 of 29 May 1990. Autoriza actividades do

[2] Open Society Initiative For Southern Africa. AfriMAP; Report and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa 2012 AfriMAP. Moçambique: A prestação efectiva de serviços públicos no sector da educação*.* Joanesburgo: AfriMAP*;* 2012, 172 p. ISBN

[3] Boletim da República. Imprensa Nacional de Moçambique, I Série – Número 21. 29 de Maio

ensino privado e explicações. I série, Maputo: Boletim da República; 1990

, Mouzinho Mário3

and

181

this topic. So, we owe a lot to this government and its people.

the reception and follow-up during the data production process.

Mondlane for their advice and encouragement.

**Author details**

Octávio Zimbico<sup>3</sup>

**References**

978-1-920489-33-5

de. 1990

José de Inocêncio Narciso Cossa<sup>1</sup>

Tura and my teachers – Alice Lopes, Rita Frangella.

\*Address all correspondence to: josecossa81@gmail.com

1 Academy of Police Sciences (ACIPOL), Maputo, Mozambique

3 Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Maputo, Mozambique

2 State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), PROPed, Brazil

It is in this context that Goodson [28] understands that each school occupies a certain position relative to the others, and the student population of each school also occupies a certain position in relation to the populations of students of other schools.

It was notorious that there was a greater influx of students in schools at the beginning of the school year, but throughout the year they abandoned them for different reasons, some of them referenced throughout this text. As suggested by Candau [17], if we want to strengthen the processes of school learning in the perspective of guaranteeing the right to education, we must affirm the urgency of working on issues related to the recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in school contexts.

In this order of ideas, based on the study of Ball [29], the school is not neutral in relation to the perpetuation of school differences and, therefore, to social differences. If the schools surveyed understood that all students were the same, they had the same learning conditions and, therefore, did not observe their differences, they ended up perpetuating and multiplying both social and school inequalities. That is, we cannot analyze the educational processes disconnected socioeconomic issues and the differences between the students.
