The most worrying problem in secondary education is its low quality and efficiency. From the point of view of coverage, in 1999 there were about 64,000 pupils in the 1st cycle of secondary education, and 8,000 in the 2nd cycle. Those are enrolment rates of 6% and 1% respectively. These coverage levels are manifestly low, both in relation to the distribution of the school population by the various levels of education, and in comparison with the total population of the country.

Furthermore, there is a general perception that the secondary education curriculum is very academic and encyclopedic. In part, this reflects a conception of secondary education as aimed mainly at providing students for universities, hence the limited stress on creating and strengthening skills and aptitudes so that those young people who do not obtain places at universities may be integrated into the labour market. To add to these problems, the number of qualified teachers at this level is low . Only 25% of the teachers in the 1st cycle of secondary education are qualified to teach at this level, and this has obvious implications for quality.

The rapid expansion of primary education and the improvements that are beginning to show in its internal effectiveness are imposing additional needs which the current secondary education does not have the capacity to meet.

The problem of secondary education is made worse by the chronic failure of technical and professional education to adjust to the current characteristics and dynamics of the Mozambican economy. Conceived in the late 1970s, the technical education curriculum was designed to meet the needs of a centrally planned economy - more specifically, in the context of a Prospective Indicative Plan through which the Mozambican government believed it could change profoundly the backwardness of the Mozambican economy within a time span of just ten years.

On this basis, elementary agricultural and arts and crafts schools were eliminated, and the structure of specialisms in the basic and mid-level courses became highly diversified. The challenges posed to technical education in the current conditions of the national market impose appropriate measures aimed at improving the efficiency of training and of the mechanisms for coordinating with social partners, particularly with employers.