CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Lesotho Edging Towards Education MDG

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ernest Chiombe

MASERU, Dec 15 2006 (IPS) - Lineo* lost her father when she was about to start school and just after her unemployed mother had become blind. When friends of the 15-year-old went to their first classes in 1999, she had to cope with grief at the death of her father while also having to take care of her blind mother.

Her dream of being educated and becoming a doctor to help her struggling mother came crashing down when she realised no one could pay for her education. Her fate only changed the following year when free primary education was introduced in Lesotho.

Lineo has since become the top student at Makhoa Primary School in the rural foothills of Leribe district in northern Lesotho.

The Southern African country is in its seventh year of providing free primary education. With adult literacy rates at around 80 percent of its two million people, Lesotho has a vision of attaining universal primary education by 2015.

This is the date set for the achievement of the United Nations’ second Millennium Development Goal (MDG), on universal primary education; this MDG also focuses on retaining pupils in primary school.

Before the introduction of free primary education in 2000, 60 children out of 100 enrolled at primary schools in Lesotho. Concerted efforts improved the enrolment figure to 80 children out of 100 in 2000; and up to 85 out of 100 in 2003 (the Ministry of Education and Training’s latest available figures).

With assistance from international institutions, the government has built more classrooms at schools and new primary schools in areas previously without education services. In the process, crowded schools have been decongested, while the long travelling distances that used to be covered by young learners have been cut down.

This year alone, 17 fully furnished primary schools have been built with help from the African Development Bank, Irish Aid, the European Union and the World Bank, making it possible for an additional 14,000 pupils to be enrolled.

Prior to the introduction of free primary education, about a quarter of pupils in the country did not have seats. Now almost every primary school child has a seat, because all the new classrooms are supplied with furniture. The government also supplies the required learning and teaching materials.

The government has employed and trained more teachers, reducing the pupil-teacher ratio from about 70:1 to current levels of 50:1. The ministry has also introduced distance education programmes to train unqualified teachers in rural areas.

Makhoa Primary School stands testimony to how free primary education has not only revolutionised schooling, but also changed children’s lives. In 2002, the government built four additional classrooms, an office, two storerooms, toilets and two water tanks there.

Previously the school had about 80 pupils crowding into each classroom, many of whom had to sit on stones or the floor. This number has been brought down to an average of 55 pupils who now all have seats to sit on, says ‘Me Minah Monokoane, the school principal.

Teachers’ morale has been boosted because “all the kids now have learning materials, as opposed to the times when only the teachers had textbooks”, adds Mamakhaola Makane, a teacher at the same school.

Teachers also praise the government’s introduction of ‘Break Through to Literacy’, a teaching methodology aimed at helping teachers to deal with large numbers of learners. Children are taught in groups in accordance with their pace of learning until they master content.

The free food provided has made school accessible to more vulnerable children. “Children are looking forward to the food provided to them every day. They get nutritionally balanced food here which has also improved their health. Many of them come from families which cannot afford eggs or milk,” says Monokoane.

The school’s pupils include orphans like 13-year-old Setlabocha One. Having joined school after the rest of his age group, he is in the same class as his two younger siblings – and delighted that his youngest sibling of seven years is able to have an education.

“I would like to thank the government for giving us the opportunity of attending school and getting free food,” says a timid Setlabocha, whose parents left behind ten orphans.

Thirteen-year-old Nkonko Hlekisane, who is from a child-headed household of seven, expresses similar gratitude. He takes home food packages supplied by the World Food Programme to share with his siblings who are not at school. This enables them to survive, as the family does not own fields for growing crops.

While success has been shown with enrolment, the high primary school drop-out rates remain a headache. Completion rates have shown limited improvement: 59 percent in 1999 before education was free, increasing to 66 percent in 2000, 65 percent in 2001, 58 percent in 2002 – and up again to 65 percent in 2003.

Thus, out of the 180,000 pupils enrolled in standard one in 2000, only 48,000 managed to write standard seven examinations this month.

Makane says some pupils leave because of marriages and pregnancies. “Others could have gone back to herding animals or circumcision schools in cases where they have failed and want to avoid being in the same classes as the younger ones.

“We cannot forget the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Many children leave school to care for their sick parents or their orphaned siblings,” emphasises Makane.

The government hopes to reach the 2015 target of universal primary education with the enactment of a new law on compulsory primary education aimed at those parents who pull their children from school to perform domestic chores like herding animals.

Still, many of the children who have dreams about bright futures – like Lineo – find those dreams dashed when they realise that secondary education is not for free.

The government is only sponsoring secondary education for double-orphans (with no surviving parent) and some vulnerable children. Ministry of Education officials confirmed to IPS that they are liaising with the Ministry of Finance about the possibility of increasing such sponsorships to accommodate larger numbers of needy children.

* Name changed on request