Commitment hinders BTL in some schools

Lack of facilities and equipment has hindered the successful implementation of the Breakthrough to Literacy (BTL) methodology in some primary schools, senior Education Officer for Mohale's Hoek, Mr. Ratoko Tau, has said.

The Breakthrough to literacy is a recently introduced method to teach the confident reading and writing of Sesotho to Class One pupils.

According to Mr. Tau, lack of classrooms, with lessons being conducted either in a church hall with several other classes, or in a tent or in the open, contributed to the failure of the programme, which requires enough space to enable establishment of learning corners where pupils are divided into small groups and are given occupational tasks.

In some schools however, the programme had failed because of a lack of commitment by the teachers and principals. "They seemed not to bother to implement it after attending the first workshop," he said.

In the meantime, the last workshop before the beginning of the school year will be held for 34 primary school principals from Quthing, Mohale's Hoek and Mafeteng on January 19 to 20, Mr. Tau announced.

The BTL method was piloted in 2001 in 70 primary schools in the Mohale's Hoek district and expanded to others from 2002.

15 January 2004