LUANDA, March 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The Mozambican government has decided to introduce indigenous languages as a means of instruction in the country's schools, according to a report reaching here on Friday.

    Mozambican Minister of Education and Culture Aires Aly told an international conference on bilingual education in Maputo on Thursday that almost half of Mozambique's children speak one of the country's more than 16 indigenous languages.

    The current monopoly of Portuguese in classrooms represented anobstacle to effective learning, the minister told the conference.

    Aly said Mozambique had begun bilingual instruction in 16 pilotschools where instruction was being conducted in both Portuguese and the most widely spoken indigenous language of the respective region. Enditem