Exposure to school flooding and its effects on teaching time - Case of some schools in the City and Province of Maputo / Mozambique

Abstract

Schools are essential infrastructures for the teaching and learning process. The teaching time is decisive for the success of this process. Its durability also depends on the geoenvironmental characteristics of the place where the school is located. The present work on the exposure to flooding in schools, shows how this phenomenon influences the teaching time. It was designed with the aim of ide ntifying schools located in floodable areas, estimating the duration of the flood and showing how this process influences teaching time. To achieve this, a bibliographic review, interviews, analysis and interpretation of satellite images - local topography, the construction of topographic profiles as well as an analysis of the vulnerability of the geoenvironmental contexts surrounding the schools were used. The work concludes that when schools and access routes located around schools are flooded, the teaching period is affected in two ways: (i) partial to total absenteeism in classes and (ii) interruption of the teaching period for days or even weeks. These facts call for a reinvention of teaching time by teachers, which involves replacing classes lost in the flood period, which in part negatively affects teaching time and the quality of the teaching and learning process. In this way, the present research suggests that hydrogeomorphological studies are carried out before the construction of schools, in order to reduce their exposure to floods, as well as to build rainwater collectors captured by the roof of school infrastructures.