Ministry of Education

The following blog post was written on the evening of the 14th July. Due to technological restrictions it was posted at a later date. Pictures will be posted even later...sorry!

This evening we visited the Ministry of Education. It was unfortunate that we had so many visits during the day, because we were pretty tired by they time we got there and probably would have asked many more questions if it was not so late in the day. That said, he was an excellent speaker. It was nice to have somebody speak so honestly and openly about the educational system.

He explained that students taken all of their classes in Sesotho during grades 1-3. Then, during grades 4-6, students start to learn more English. Finally, grades 7-12 are taught exclusively in English.

After each level of school there is a test to determine if students will pass on to the next level, although many students don’t pass between grades based on teacher’s recommendation. The exit exam upon completed 12th grade is the Cambridge Overseas Exam, which is not a highly valued exam around the world at this point in time. Therefore, students completing high school in Lesotho are often required to complete one year of pre-college/university coursework to be ready to start their college education. This includes the National University of Lesotho.

For funding, Lesotho values education highly and 12% of their GNP is spent on education-which is the highest in Africa. However, there are still some concerns. For example, for every $1 spent on primary school student’s education, $200 is spent for a college student’s education. Less than 1% of the education spent on special education and, although only 20% of students receive pre-school, only 1% of the education budget goes towards that as well.

The speaker emphasized the lack of qualified teachers as a huge problem. Around 40% of primary school teachers lack the appropriate certificate. He continued to say that, at the current rate of teacher certification (there is a distance education course for current full-time teachers) it will be 2015 before all of the teachers will be certified.

He also stated the connection between religious institutions and schools continues to be a problem when trying to teach life skills courses. This seems to be a larger problem when it comes to sex education and information about HIV/AIDS (which infects about 35-40% of Lesotho).

Overall, the speaker was very interesting and it was a great way to end our day of great speakers.