• ICT and education

ICT and education

In Lesotho, girls are more likely to participate in schooling and have higher literacy rates than boys. Boys’ enrolment is lower than girls’ at primary and secondary school, but the gap is greater at secondary level. Boys clearly under-participate in school. A state-run open and distance learning (ODL) programme is reaching out to them.

Differences in performance at school between boys and girls in Lesotho are insignificant. However, the circumstances for boys are a concern on two fronts – their repetition rates are higher and boys’ participation is worse than girls’, especially in secondary schooling.

Boys’ poor participation is a result of the tradition of herding. They tend to livestock from a young age in rural areas, particularly among the poor and people living in the highlands, who make up one-third of the population. Villages in the highlands tend to be isolated, making school attendance difficult. Teaching at rural schools that lack facilities is not an attractive prospect for teachers.

A book produced by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth of Learning attempts to understand the nature and causes of boys’ underachievement in Commonwealth countries and suggests possible ways to deal with this. The study uses data and information from case studies in four Commonwealth countries – Jamaica, Lesotho, Australia and Samoa. Under current conditions in Lesotho, open and distance learning (ODL) is an attractive potential solution. This case study looks at the Lesotho Distance Teaching Centre’s Learning Post programme, which aims to reach illiterate and semi-literate learners, most of whom are herding in remote rural areas.

The study found that:

• A significant feature of the programme is its flexibility, allowing learners to complete the course at their own pace and in their own time. This helps learners who are required to help their parents by herding.
• Most learners enrolled on the programme come from a poor and uneducated background.  Their mothers are mostly housewives and their fathers are farmers. On the whole, their parents have never been to school and are still illiterate.
• The programme teaches basic literacy and numeracy skills and some vocational skills, and has had a positive impact on the learners and their communities.
• As it does not offer a complete cycle of primary or basic education, it is not equivalent to primary education. It has therefore been criticised as a poor substitute to primary schooling for poor children.

In remote locations and among dispersed populations, ODL is a potential solution, as this case study indicates. However, the researchers note that:

• ODL must be planned and implemented with care if its aims are to provide basic or higher levels of education.
• If a complete cycle of basic education is to be offered, this requires a different treatment to that of literacy, and will need children to participate for longer hours on an ongoing basis.
• For models of ODL to be successful, they will need well designed curricula using various technological tools as well as face to face contact.
• Further solutions need to be sought to the problem of boys’ under-participation which, in Lesotho, appears to be due to a combination of social, economic and physical factors.

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