Government believes the time is now ripe for the breaking of all barriers to a free primary education accessed by all the country’s children. A law making it compulsory for parents to send children to school is to be tabled before parliament very soon.

All these measures are being taken because government believes that education can be a very powerful tool in the reduction of poverty, the Prime Minister, Mr. Pakalitha Mosisili told parents at the official opening of the Makhalong LEC Primary School, in the Qacha’s Nek district on April 29. 

Education can help the country get out of being forever dependent on foreign assistance. This should include ensuring that the decisions people make do not impede orphaned children’s opportunity to go to school. 

With this kind of resolve, it is hard to understand why some people continue to accuse government of having plans to take over church-run schools. Government has assisted in the upgrading of some forty schools, 173 classrooms, 385 toilets as well as several other buildings on 27 church sites in the Qacha’s Nek district alone.   

Government and the Church are on the same mission, that of investing in and ensuring its children’s future, the Prime Minister said.

03 May 2005