The Minister of Education and Training (MOET) Dr Mamphono Khaketla says her ministry is in the process of reviewing teachers’ services with regard to remunerations.

The minister made this remarks when addressing participants during a Donor Coordination and Sector Wide Approach joint review conference held in Maseru on Wednesday.

Dr Khaketla said the review is aimed at motivating teachers thereby enabling them to provide quality education to students. “If teachers are paid well, I am certain that they will do their work effectively and produce good results by the end of the year,” she said.

She noted that in an effort to address shortage of teachers in schools, her ministry has this year allocated 800 positions for secondary teachers.

Meanwhile, the minister said there are over 1000 government primary schools and a total of 300 secondaries, commenting that this is a major challenge and an indication that there is need for more classes.

“M30 million is therefore required for additional classes next year so as to accommodate more students.”

Sharing the minister's sentiments, a representative of the Irish Aid, Mr. Paddy Fay, said since the introduction of Free Primary Education in 1998, enrollment of students has increased, urging donors and stakeholders to join hands in helping the ministry achieve the goals of vision 2020.

Mr. Fay said Free Primary Education is important as it gives opportunity and access to education for the marginalised section of the society.

The three-day conference is intended to deliberate on among others the education and training sector performance by looking at the budgetary performance, and the target indicators for 2006-2007 financial years.

The conference will also review progress on operationalisation of the MOET national response strategy of 2007, influx into secondary education as well as to share achievements, challenges and future plans of the education and training sector in Lesotho.

Attendants at the conference include; representatives from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP), Irish Aid and World Bank.

This is the 3rd joint review meeting to be held, and a similar meeting was held in November last year.

Source: LENA 05/09/2007