Prohibitive fees force students to leave secondary schools early.

Only five to six percent of students admitted into secondary schools manage to get to the Ordinary levels examinations because of  several reasons, including prohibitive textbook and other tuition fees, the Principal Secretary for Education, Ms. Ntsebe Kokome told a two-day evaluation workshop in Maseru on January 5.

Speaking at the workshop, the Principal Secretary said the figure was only a slight improvement over earlier statistics in which in the mid 1990s only 3.9 percent of these students ended up with O levels.

Factors such as high school fees, expensive textbooks as well as school uniforms mad education prohibitive and resulted in lowered student numbers, Ms. Kokome said.    The workshop is looking at ways to evaluate
suitable textbooks and other set books for different subjects to be used in the first year of secondary school
this year.

She commended introduction of the Textbook Rental Scheme (TRS) beginning this year, which she said  is meant to reduce the cost of books as well as to improve the quality of education. She also appealed to all at the workshop to be very critical in evaluating the textbooks, as their choice will reflect on the quality of education eventually provided.

Chief Education Officer responsible for Curriculum Services, Mr. 'Mota Sekonyela said unsuitable textbooks have to a large extent tended to stifle teachers' creativity and initiative, promoting mechanical and lifeless methods of teaching, discouraging all spirit of experimentation and negatively influencing teachers to place stress on wrong or unimportant things in education.

He urged all to rise above the petty underhanded pressures of some publishers who would always want their books to be prescribed even at the expense of quality but let the best quality book win. The Textbook Rental Scheme marks the second phase of the Lesotho government's commitment to ensuring a free and accessible education to all Basotho youth, which started with free primary education in 2000, he said.

Participants at the workshop include professionals from the National University of Lesotho (NUL), Lesotho College of Education (LCE), technical institutions, Ministry of Education and Training departments and teachers from the various secondary/high schools in the country.

05 January 2004