![]() ![]() We’ve got children from Zimbabwe and South Africa. We’ve got a pair of Scottish/Mozambican brothers. “We’ve got a wonderful mix, so their mother tongue could be Gujarati, Afrikaans, English or Portuguese,” Lee said. ![]() The students, ranging from ages five to eight, come from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The new school opened with 42 students spread between kindergarten three (five year-olds) and grades one, two and three. ![]() “And that’s what I’m really excited about, to see them as children and then one day who knows, I may get to see them when they’re leaders in civil society and making critical decisions for their country’s future.so I know it’s great to see that all beginning here.” The Students and Classrooms “I’ve always said that our students arrive as children and leave as young men and women – confident young men and women, ready to go out into the world,” he said. Lee described the August launch as “small – what we call a ‘soft-launch’,” and said that, “at the moment, we only have four classrooms.” But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t rewarding for him to witness. The Academy in Maputo is closely modelled after the first two Aga Khan Academies established in Mombasa, Kenya and Hyderabad, India. The nursery school is the first stage of the master plan to be implemented – with the full junior and senior sections to follow. Although the green light for the opening came in 2012, the work that has gone into the recent launch amounts to years, and it’s far from over. Lee has been involved with the initial design, planning, government liaison, and recruitment of teachers and students since June 2009. ![]() “It was quite emotional because it was the culmination of four years of work for me.” “It was thrilling, exciting,” said Lee Davis, Director of Academic Planning and Development at the Academy in Maputo, recalling the launch. It was 19 August 2013, and the school, the third in a network of Aga Khan Academies established by His Highness the Aga Khan, had just launched in Maputo, Mozambique. They came in buses ready for the first day of school, ready to meet their new teachers and their new peers. ![]()
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