Education plays a fundamental role in broadening people's choices. Educated people are more likely to invest their knowledge effectively and efficiently in creating conditions for leading a long and healthy life, free from want. They are better placed to use their rights and to carry out fully and consciously their duties as members of a community.

The return of peace and the economic recovery in Mozambique, together with improvements in access to education, as a result of investments in rebuilding the school network, allow Mozambicans once more to look upon the future with some optimism, particularly as regards broadened opportunities for access to education. However, the rebirth of hope among Mozambicans unfortunately coincides with a new challenge, with the ingredients of a new curse: the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which threatens to overturn all the efforts and resources spent over the last eight years of peace in the education sector .