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 The government of Lesotho has enacted the Education Act 2010, legalising the right to free and compulsory education. The act is hailed as "a historic landmark for the children of Lesotho" and will boost school enrolment.
In Lesotho, free primary education was introduced in the year 2000 as a major strategy towards achieving the "Education for All" goals. This initially led to rapid increase in the net enrolment rate, which currently stands at an impressive 82 percent of primary school-aged children - 80 percent of boys and 84 of percent girls. But Basotho authorities aim at enrolling all children in the kingdom, thus enacting free and compulsory education. The new act is the outcome of a widely consultative process which aimed at reviewing the Education Act of 1995. While legislating for free and compulsory primary education, government needed to improve the quality of education, as well as making it more responsive to the impact of HIV, AIDS and poverty. Ahmed Magan, the Lesotho representative of the UN's children agency UNICEF, today hailed the new act. "This law will give a major boost to education; it is a critical step forward in reaching the remaining 18 percent of the most vulnerable children who are still out of school. The next phase of implementation is the most decisive stage to ensure the fundamental right to free and compulsory education is fully realised," Mr. Magan said. Lesotho has one of the highest proportions of orphans in the world at 12 percent of the population and the third-highest prevalence of HIV, with young generations being the most affected and at risk. "We need to ensure that children are fully-equipped with the means to make healthy and informed decisions that will improve the quality of their lives, and school plays a major role to achieve this," says Mr. Magan. Making sure all children are in school is an important first step, but it does not necessarily mean they are being educated - as experiences have shown in other African countries introducing free and compulsory education. A similar attempt in Malawi grossly underestimated the need for trained teachers, school infrastructure and textbooks - thus leading to a strong decline in education quality. |
