3.

School location

Macaringa Upper Primary School is located in Morrumbene district, in the center of Inhambane
province, 20 km west of village, in Cambine locality.

3.1.School characterization

At Macaringa Upper Primary Scholl there are four classrooms built of mixed materials, a small
office built of zincs with two divisions, in which a secretary and the Headmaster office. There
three bathrooms (one for teachers and two for the students), three toilets, a well prepared football
field where the students do their physical education and play football in their free times. The
school wall is built of sticks occupying an estimated area of 70 per 50 meters due to the number
of students in this school. According to the Deputy Headmaster the total number of the students
in this school is around 160 per year.

The School has a huge area estimated around three hectares in which the students make their
small farms and produce different crops as such: cassava, corn, beans, and other leguminous
occupying half an hectare. There’s also a water pump and several fruit plants distributed
throughout the school area. The school works in two-shift. The first shift starts from 6.45min
with nation anthem. The lessons start exactly at 7.00 and extend up to 12.05minutes lasting 45
minutes each one. The second shift starts also with national anthem at 12.05 and lessons right at
12.20 extending up to 17.25minutes. In each shift there’s a long brake of 15 minutes normally it
the middle of the period.

Macaringa Upper Primary School teaches 154 students distributed in 7 streams, from 1st to 7th
grade of which 76 girls and 78 boys, with a total of 6 teachers, two of whom are women.

For good pedagogical / didactic management, several meetings have been held, where each year,
the school direction holds about 10 meetings with teachers, 3 with students, six with parents and
guardians, and about 9 meetings decors with the school council. Apart from the meeting planned
by the School Direction each subject group has biweekly meetings, that is, each group has one
day every fifteen days, planned for the purposes of planning and exchanging experiences. In
order to harmonize some activities or discuss urgent issues, the School Direction holds
extraordinary meetings with his staffs when necessary. In order to ensure the fulfillment of
planning, sometimes the School Direction sends a circular announcement to request the
participation of all teachers in planning and for pedagogical supervision. To ensure the
achievement of the planned objectives, the school management controls and monitors the
activities permanently. Therefore, the school is kept in functioning by a total of 6 employees, all
teachers, where 4 are men and 2 women, of which a director and his deputy. There is no support
staff at the school as the table illustrates:

Table 1: School composition

School composition
Description Men Women Total
Teachers 4 2 6
Students 78 76 154
Total 82 78 160
Site: School Direction

3.2.School history

According to the community leadership, the school was built in 2001 as a way of shortening the
distance faced by children from Bungane to Bambeluane. At the time there was a person called
Carlos Mafanequisso contracted and paid by the local population through contributions to reward
his effort on teaching the kids. Furthermore the school was officialized as an attached class of
Bungane Upper Primary School during two years. As an attached classroom the school received
material from Bungane and for the first time was sent a government teacher called Fagito
Amando in 2005 to work with all streams in this school.

In the following year the school was unattached and registered as Escola Primária do 1o Grau de
Macaringa.

It took so much time to experience significant changes in term of the number of the students due
to its localization. In 2016 grade 6 was introduced and the school was upgraded to second level
fact that forced the changing of its name to Escola Primária do 1o e 2o Graus de Macaringa.