The main purpose of this Report was to reflect upon the place of education in expanding the choices of Mozambicans. There were two main reasons behind selecting education as the theme: first, education is one of the pillars of the concept of human development and features as a variable in calculating several of its composite indicators developed to this end.

Secondly, education was always a sensitive and central matter in the post-independence development of Mozambique. The main purpose of this Report was not only to make an analytical description of the various stages of the development of education over the past 25 years, but also to raise problems, question directions and successes, identify obstacles, problematise choices and discuss their relevance for society.

The report presents readings and perceptions on the relevance of the current education system, from the perspective of assessing to what extent it has contributed increasingly to expanding the choices of Mozambicans. The analyses were always undertaken from the perspective of judging t o what extent education is providing Mozambicans with that they need to allow them to eliminate shortcomings and privations, endow them with the knowledge needed to fight against exclusion an d to improve their social condition as members of a community or communities. The analyses tried to adhere to with rigour to the principle of stripping the analyses of any pretension to present ready-made solutions.

More than just complex analyses and the presentation of formulae, the authors have tried simultaneously to reflect and share information on education with users of the Report, with the intention of awakening greater interest and encouraging wider reflection on the part of the various groups directly or indirectly involved in the educational process from a human rights perspective.

The more demanding reader , who expected to find great solutions to the enormous problems of education in Mozambique, may per haps feel a certain sense of frustration on reaching the end of the Report. To some extent he/she may be right. But the authors, who included education professionals, have always been careful to warn that there are no magical formulae for the problems of education, not in Mozambique, and not in any other country. Each country finds, in its own way, the best formula for providing school education adequate to its conditions and priorities.

In this Report, among other aspects, an attempt was made to show the journey traveled so far , and that which still has to be traveled, the lessons and the imposing challenges to be faced. Education has the heavy responsibility of ensuring the training of Mozambicans capable of liberating themselves, transforming and influencing the space that immediately surrounds them, and developing in a sustainable fashion the available material resources - as well as, and why not, influencing as far as possible the destinies of the world in the for a among the concert of nations in which Mozambique is a member.

One of the lessons learnt in analysing the data contained in this report is that Mozambique still has a long road ahead. Seeking for solutions to the problems of education, like any other development process, is not something linear . The trajectory of education in Mozambique proves precisely what the poet wrote a long time ago: when you walk, there is no path, you make the path as you go along. The tar get of providing education for all Mozambicans and the merits of the effort remain valid and clear . But the paths by which that tar get can be reached remain elusive, sinuous and accident-prone.