The Portuguese School of Mozambique – Centre for Portuguese Teaching and Language (EPM-CELP) has recently been approved to join the Escola Azul (Blue School) school community. This recognition is the result of EPM-CELP’s active involvement in understanding the ocean’s influence on humanity.
This distinction, the first awarded in 2023, reinforces EPM-CELP’s commitment to initiatives to prevent, mitigate and correct the effects of unsustainability, which are addressed in citizenship education classes.
Escola Azul is an educational programme of Portugal’s Ministry of the Economy and the Sea that aims to promote ocean literacy in the school community and to nurture more aware and engaged generations who can contribute to the sustainability of the ocean. The programme distinguishes educational institutions that incorporate sea-related themes into their curricula, forming a community that brings together schools, the maritime industry, municipalities, NGOs, universities and other bodies with an active role in ocean literacy.
The project in question aims to motivate the school community to understand the reciprocal influence between the ocean and ourselves, encouraging schools to approach the theme of the ocean in a structured, interdisciplinary and in-depth way, which transcends the classroom context and has an impact at the social level, both through the involvement of local communities and through the collaboration of different partners.
The Escola Azul programme also includes multidisciplinary marine education activities across a diverse network of partners, aimed at the Blue Schools. Through cross-curricular, innovative and creative learning, Escola Azul stimulates the development of critical thinking and initiative in students and encourages them to apply their knowledge to concrete changes in attitude in their relationship with the ocean. The central role of the Escola Azul programme is described in the chapter “Fostering Ocean-Literate Generations: The Portuguese Blue School”, published in a Springer volume on ocean literacy in June 2021.
EPM-CELP’s achievement of this title is due above all to activities that the UPA (the student association Unidos pelo Ambiente, or United for the Environment) carried out with the aim of promoting ocean sustainability. As an example, we can mention World Clean Up Day, held at Ponta Dobela and Costa do Sol, which Xonguila reported on. The UPA develops projects that aim to raise awareness and change the habits of the population for a greater good.
