ETHICAL EDUCATION IN MOZAMBIQUE: BETWEEN NORMATIVE DISCOURSES AND THE CHALLENGES OF PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE IN BASIC SCHOOLING

Abstract

Ethical education in primary and secondary schooling is a fundamental pillar for building just and democratic societies. This study is justified by the need to understand how ethics is conceived and applied within the Mozambican educational system, in dialogue with experiences from the Portuguese-Speaking African Countries (PALOP). Its objective is To analyze the convergences and divergences between the normative guidelines of ethical education and their effective pedagogical implementation in primary education in Mozambique. To this end, a bibliographic-documentary investigation was conducted, complemented by qualitative content analysis in academic databases and institutional repositories. The results show that, although national legislation and policies recognize ethics as a central component of integral education, significant challenges remain, such as curricular fragmentation, insufficient teacher preparation, and a lack of contextualized methodologies. Thus, it is observed that transversal integration of ethics into political-pedagogical projects, strengthening continuous teacher training, and the use of contextualized pedagogical practices such as dramatizations, palaver, and community projects, emerge as promising pathways. It is concluded that this work provides a critical synthesis and practical recommendations for educational policies and school practices that foster the effective experience of values in Mozambican schools (Guimarães, 2005).