Word of Faith High School targeted by the Lesotho Government for closure in an effort to establish standards for education within the Southern African mountain kingdom. The parliament has set up new guidelines for school licensing.
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Bogus schools to close down
3 Nov 2010
By Caswell Tlali
MASERU — The government will shut down bogus and unregistered private schools at the end of this month, the Lesotho Times can reveal.
The clampdown could throw hundreds of secondary school pupils into the streets.
There are dozens of unregistered schools that have been operating illegally for the past few years.
There are fears in the education sector that most of the students from the illegal schools might not be able to enrol with properly registered schools.
Many teachers might lose their jobs.
The office of the Attorney-General wrote to the illegal schools on October 18 warning them that they should stop operating by November 30.
The Lesotho Times can confirm that three schools have received the letter.
The Lesotho International College High School and Word of Life High School are among the schools that received the letter.
There are however dozens of other private schools that have been operating illegally and are unlikely to meet the stringent requirement for registration under the recently enacted Education Act 2010.
Many are operating from run-down structures and have no proper ablution facilities.
Most of the illegal private schools do not have qualified teachers and they are not registered at examination centres.
“It is apparent that your school has intentionally failed, neglected or ignored this Act as it is operating illegally,” says a letter from the Attorney General’s office to one of the schools.
“Kindly be informed that you are given up to the 30th November 2010 to comply with this Act, failing compliance therewith, our further instructions are to proceed to court without notice for an order for closure of your school.”
This is not the first time that the illegal schools have been warned about the impending closure.
In November the ministry of education wrote letters reminding the illegal schools that they needed to register if they wanted to continue operating.
A founding member of another private school, Word of Faith High School in Thetsane, has confirmed that they received a similar letter.
Pastor Lefa Monaheng of Zoe Bible Church said upon realising that prospects of registering Word of Faith High School were slim his church stopped affiliating with the school.
“I now do not have anything to do with the school because it cannot be registered,” Pastor Monaheng said.
“It does not belong to me as a person and it does not belong to the church anymore,” he said.
Pastor Monaheng is the secretary of three Zoe Bible Church-owned schools.
Education Minister ’Mamphono Khaketla said the ministry will not allow unregistered schools to enrol students next year.
“There is not even a single unqualified school that will operate next year,” she said.
“There are enough registered schools with which we encourage parents to enrol their children.”
She however said the ministry might be lenient to some schools whose registration is under process.
Such schools, Khaketla said, will have to satisfy the ministry that they will qualify for registration and in the meantime they will only be allowed to run their Form C and Form E classes.
“Students who are not in those classes will have to go to other schools because we are not going to allow any unregistered school next year,” Khaketla said.
Khaketla said a government gazette issued earlier this year has a list of registered schools.
There are 324 secondary and high schools registered with the education ministry countrywide, according to the gazette.
Khaketla said parents should check if a school is registered before they enrol their children.
For a school to be registered under the Education Act 2010 it must have a board of directors and a constitution approved by the Ministry of Education.
It has to have proof of title to the land on which it is located.
The buildings and facilities must meet the government’s standards.
It has to show its financial position at the time of registration and proof that it has money to sustain itself.
Education ministry officials say most of the unregistered schools do not meet these conditions and are unlikely to meet them by November 30.
The Lesotho Teachers’ Trade Union (LTTU) spokesperson, Vuyani Tyhali, said the unregistered schools deserve to be closed because they are “spoiling the education sector”.
“Some schools open today and close overnight because they are not formally registered and nobody is accountable for their wrongdoing,” Tyhali said.
“They open with the sole purpose of enriching their proprietors and they charge exorbitant fees,” he said.
“By so doing they are defrauding the nation.”
Provide alternatives to private schools
3 Nov 2010
By Editor
AS reported in one of our stories in this issue the government is moving swiftly to shut down all illegal schools operating in Lesotho.
The Ministry of Education has given all unregistered schools until November 30 to either shut down or face legal action.
The move will see hordes of unregistered schools failing to open for the new academic term next January.
We have always maintained in these pages that Lesotho needs a strong education system to meet the challenges of our modern times and that a well-educated populace can be the engine for economic growth.
In that sense we believe an educated citizenry is an asset to any country.
Any country that has made tremendous advances in the lives of its people began by empowering its people through education.
This is the reason why we applauded parliament when it passed the Education Act 2010 which seeks to make primary school education compulsory.
Our verdict was that Lesotho’s education sector prior to the passing of the new law was thoroughly chaotic.
The education system did little to promote the government’s goal of providing quality education to all children.
We think the decision to shut down the schools could help bring sanity back into the troubled sector.
Lesotho could not address its current challenges in industry with such a chaotic education system in place.
On the whole we believe the new education law is a progressive piece of legislation.
People must go to school.
The new law will make it an offence for any parent to deliberately fail to send their child to school.
Any parent who fails to send their child to school will be liable to a one-year jail term or pay a fine of M1 000.
Where a pupil is to be absent from school parents are expected to notify the school principal and provide acceptable reasons in writing why the pupil should miss school.
Failure to do so would be considered an offence punishable by a jail term or a fine.
The law also requires that all schools operating in Lesotho should be registered with the Ministry of Education.
We think the radical law is perfectly fine in so far as it seeks to instil order in the education sector.
We note that most of these illegal private schools are in a derelict state.
They do not only pose a serious danger to the learners but to the owners as well.
Asking these schools to shut down and properly register is therefore perfectly in order.
But there is a flip-side to this issue.
In our opinion the mushrooming of these illegal schools was spawned by the government’s failure to provide adequate public schools.
The illegal private schools simply filled a void.
It is a simple case of supply and demand.
The government must demonstrate that it has the capacity to fill this void and provide decent schools with better infrastructure and resources.
We expect the government to invest heavily in quality education.
In our opinion the former system was not up to scratch and was in need of reform.
This is clearly demonstrated from the few graduates we have interacted with.
They leave a lot to be desired.
This is not surprising because these graduates are products of ill-equipped schools.
These dysfunctional students can hardly spell and do basic math.
The government must also look at the conditions of service for teachers.
We do not need demotivated teachers manning our classrooms.
LCD leadership to meet over petitions
5 Nov 2010
By Bongiwe Zihlangu
MASERU — The ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) will hold a leadership conference on November 20 with recent petitions calling for the ouster of the party’s national executive committee topping the agenda.
A circular dated 27 October and seen by the Lesotho Times says the leadership conference will discuss 26 petitions from constituencies calling for the dismantling of the national executive committee.
More than 35 constituencies had earlier demanded that the party holds a special conference to discuss the committee’s fate.
In their petitions the constituencies said they had lost confidence in the national committee and wanted it disbanded.
They accused the committee of insubordination, failure to run party affairs and refusal to deal with concerns from constituencies.
The constituencies were demanding that the party should call a special conference to discuss the issue.
Sources close to the party said the national executive committee met on Wednesday last week and decided that only 26 of the more than 35 petitions should be discussed at the leadership conference.
The sources told the Lesotho Times that the meeting was “stormy” because some committee members were of the view that none of the petitions should be discussed.
Others refused to accept that there was a general lack of confidence in the committee while others pointed out that there could be a conspiracy against them, the committee added.
“They argued that it would be impossible to isolate some members of the committee as it was in violation of the constitution,” said the source.
“They also pointed out some irregularities in the manner in which the letters were written which they said reflected the opinions of only but a few key personalities in the party.”
“They also claimed that the letters were mostly identical except for the signatures, which they said reflected the fact they were typed all at the same time with constituency secretaries being called only to provide signatures.”
The source said after a long and heated discussion the committee then decided to put the 26 petitions on the agenda of the leadership conference.
Meanwhile, the battle to dump the committee seems to have gathered momentum.
An LCD MP who spoke to this paper and whose constituency wrote one of the petitions said they would use the leadership conference to register their discontent with the national executive committee.
“My constituency and I are not in the least deterred by this little development,” he said.
“We want this committee out. If they think that by refusing to call for a special congress they have miraculously survived the axe, they have another thing coming their way.”
A senior party official who is also a cabinet minister and whose constituency also wrote a petition said he believed the committee was only delaying its fate by refusing to hold a special conference as the constituencies had demanded.
However, an LCD MP from one of the constituencies in Leribe district opposed to the petitions has told this paper that attempting to disband the committee was “a futile exercise”.
“They did not follow the correct procedure to begin with. Again, hoping to get the leadership conference to force the executive committee to call a special conference will not work,” he said.
“The leadership conference does not have the authority to give orders to the NEC. What they can hope to do is make the recommendation at the November conference.
“Once the recommendation is made, it would have to be followed by at least three official letters from no less than three constituencies emphasising the recommendation and committing the NEC.”
He also said the constituencies that were pushing for the removal of the leadership were part of a faction that is “power hungry”.
“Why rush when we have only a year to go before the next NEC elections? The need to dissolve the NEC is actually perpetuated by the hunger for positions in the executive committee,” the MP said.
“If they push for the dissolution of the executive committee, this thing might end up in the courts of law. If it reaches that stage, then the LCD will be dead and buried. It won’t do us any good.”
ABC: things falling apart
3 Nov 2010
By Bongiwe Zihlangu
MASERU — The haggling and bitter infighting within the All Basotho Convention (ABC) party sounds a death knell for the opposition party, analysts have warned.
The ABC held a chaotic special conference last weekend at Maseru High School that saw delegates call for the ouster of the party’s entire national executive committee.
The meeting ended in acrimony as delegates hurled insults at each other.
Even the party’s embattled leader, Thomas Thabane, was not spared as delegates booed him as he tried to address the conference.
Constituencies such as Mabote in Berea district and Butha-Buthe said the national executive should be disbanded because “it was inept”.
Analysts who spoke to the Lesotho Times this week said the infighting suggested the opposition party was on its death-bed.
They said the infighting exposed deep cracks within the biggest opposition party which was expected to give the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party a run for its money at the next polls in 2012.
The analysts said the ABC was in a state of paralysis and should kiss its chances of succeeding at the polls good-bye.
They said with less than a year-and-a-half before the polls, the infighting leaves the party with very little time to regroup to put up a credible showing at the elections.
Tlohang Letsie, a political science lecturer at the National University of Lesotho (NUL), said Thabane no longer commanded respect among the party’s supporters.
“The masses that joined the ABC at its inception were drawn to the party by Thabane because of his high political profile. But it is apparent that he is losing grip on the party,” Letsie said.
“Having acted in the manner they did meant the delegates have lost confidence in him.”
Letsie said Thabane’s decision to end a political alliance between the ABC and the Lesotho Workers Party (LWP) had alienated some of his own supporters.
He said Thabane should swallow his pride and recall LWP leader Macaefa Billy who was kicked out of the party in September.
“If Thabane wants the ABC to regroup and reinvent itself before the 2012 elections he simply has to swallow his pride and make amends with Billy.
“Failure to do so will definitely spell the end of his political career because in politics you win elections by numbers and nothing else,” Letsie said.
Motlamelle Kapa, who is also a political science lecturer at NUL blamed the ABC’s current woes on “lack of internal party democracy”.
This lack of internal democracy bred bitter resentment targeted at the leadership, Kapa said.
Kapa said the manner in which Thabane handled the Billy issue had wreaked havoc within the opposition party as it was made “without consultation or following the right channels”.
“People were not even given reasons why the ABC no longer wanted Billy,” Kapa said.
He said the fact there was a significant section of ABC supporters who were rallying behind Billy means “they see him as a credible alternative” to Thabane.
“The majority of ABC supporters, particularly the youth, are in support of Billy because they have realised nobody else takes them seriously,” Kapa said.
“We have reached a stage of progressive politics whereby people are quick to make decisions if they don’t get services they require.”
He said some supporters “might even be thinking that he (Billy) could take them beyond the 2012 elections”.
The respected academic however said it might be premature to start writing the ABC’s political obituary.
“The fights rocking the ABC are nothing new in our political landscape. It happens in all other political organisations, it’s a general problem,” Kapa said.
Nchafatso Sello, a former president of the Lesotho Council of Non-Governmental Organisations, said the ABC was facing a race against time to reinvent itself ahead of the 2012 elections.
“The elections are just around the corner and the ABC’s best bet is to accommodate its followers and their needs.
“If the internal squabbles persist, then there will be no hope for the party,” Sello said.
“The ABC should also for once make clear what it stands for so that when the people join the party they know what they are getting themselves into. If there’s one thing people long for, it is stability.
“People should also know that the allegiances they form are not always for the benefit of the party so they should put the interests of the party before their own.”
Minister sues defunct newspaper
3 Nov 2010
By Tefo Tefo
MASERU — Local Government Minister Pontso Sekatle is suing the defunct Voice of Free Democrats newspaper for M800 000 for defamation.
The partisan newspaper was published by some members of the ruling Congress for Democracy (LCD) youth league.
Sekatle claims the paper, which collapsed due to financial problems, defamed her character and damaged her reputation in a series of articles it published in January last year.
The paper was run by a group of youths who were suspected to be aligned to a faction of the ruling party.
It ran stories attacking ministers, senior party members and government officials.
In her court papers Sekatle claims the articles were meant to portray her as an “untruthful” (liar) and corrupt public officer.
The parties will meet in court on November 25 to set the date for the hearing.
The publishers of the Voice of Free Democrats are yet to file a response but have indicated that Sekatle’s suit will be defended.
“In its various issues covering the period from about the beginning to about the end of January 2009 the defendants (The Voice and its editors) herein unlawfully and with intent to defame plaintiff (Sekatle), published several defamatory allegations and matters about and concerning the plaintiff herein,” says the minister in the papers.
“The net effect of these publications was that the plaintiff is corrupt, untruthful and immoral criminal with perverse and degenerated understanding of moral values and that she corruptly abuses the public office she holds as minister.”
Sekatle also complains about her pictures and cartoons that accompanied the articles in the newspaper.
She said the paper ridiculed her without justification and in the process damaged her reputation through the publication of those cartoons.
“The abovementioned publications, some of which were accompanied by plaintiff’s pictures and cartoons are untrue, defamatory per se or at least in the context in which they were published.
“They were read and understood by the readers of the first defendant (The Voice) as being about and concerning the plaintiff herein.”
She claims the publications reached thousands of readers in Lesotho and neighbouring countries.
The people who read the articles, Sekatle claims, were led to believe that she was a corrupt person.
“They were read by thousands of people who prior thereto, held plaintiff in great esteem and who have understood the publications to mean inter alia that, plaintiff is indeed, corrupt, debased, untruthful, dishonest and that she is an immoral criminal not worthy of the public office she holds and that she has perverse and degenerated understanding of moral values,” the papers say.
It is further alleged that the publications have badly impacted on Sekatle’s dignity.
“The said publications have greatly and irretrievably impaired and damaged plaintiff’s dignitas and fame in the eyes of thousands of right-thinking members of society in Lesotho, the Republic of South Africa and other countries.
“As a result plaintiff has suffered damages in the sum of M800 000 for which she holds defendants jointly and severally liable,” the papers read.
Other defendants are the editor Refiloe Mohapi, co-editor Tjonane Matla, co-editor Motebang Masike and Mohala oa Ntsu (Pty) Ltd, the company that owns the paper.
Speaker snubs Thabane
3 Nov 2010
By Bongiwe Zihlangu
MASERU — The Speaker of the National Assembly Nthloi Motsamai has rejected a request by Thomas Thabane to replace his constituency secretary.
A constituency secretary is an official appointed by parliament to co-ordinate activities between the constituency and parliament.
The secretary works directly with the constituency’s MP.
Thabane, who leads the main opposition All Basotho Convention (ABC) party, wrote to Motsamai notifying her that he was replacing his constituency secretary Lerato Mochochonono.
In a letter dated September 29 2010, Thabane said he wanted to terminate Mochochonono’s contract and replace her with someone else.
He did not provide reasons for the move.
In the letter Thabane informed Motsamai that he had appointed a new constituency secretary, ‘Makhauta Francina Taole.
“I humbly wish to inform your office that Ms ‘Makhauta Francina Taole (Passport-no RA587500) is the new Abia constituency secretary with effect from 01/10/2010,” reads Thabane’s letter.
Sources at the National Assembly told the Lesotho Times this week that Thabane’s request to replace the secretary was rejected after consultation with parliament’s legal advisers.
An internal memo seen by this paper says Thabane’s attempt to appoint a new constituency secretary was in violation of Lesotho’s labour laws, in particular the Labour Code of 1992.
According to the advisory, Thabane should have first provided credible reasons why the secretary no longer qualified for the position.
“Disposing of Lerato Mochochonono is therefore in contravention of the provisions of the labour law,” says the advisory.
The advisory further says Mochochonono’s position is fixed and will therefore “not be terminated”.
Motsamai was further advised to ignore Thabane’s letter.
Sources at the National Assembly said Motsamai had since advised Thabane of the decision.
Attempts to get comment from Thabane failed yesterday as his mobile phone was on voicemail.
Duped police ‘recruits’ report for duty
3 Nov 2010
By 'Mantoetse Maama
MASERU — Four women who were allegedly recruited by a bogus employment agent received the shock of their lives this week when they reported for “duty” at the police headquarters in Maseru.
The woman, who was arrested on October 22, is alleged to have swindled about 32 people out of their money after she claimed she was recruiting trainees for the army and police.
Lerato Lebesa, from Seapoint in Maseru allegedly claimed she was accredited as a recruitment agent for the army and police.
The police say Lebesa conned dozens of desperate job seekers over a six-month period.
Each of her victims had paid between M2 860 and M2 960 to get a job into the security services. Others had been promised that they would be trained as police officers and soldiers.
The four women arrived at the police headquarters on Monday to take up “their posts”, police spokesperson Masupha Masupha said.
He said they had letters of admission into the police force.
The letters, Masupha said, had a forged signature of the police commissioner.
The letter said the women were supposed to start their jobs as police assistants on November 1.
“They could not believe it when they were told that the agency was bogus and they had been swindled out of their money,” Masupha said.
“They even told the police that when they were recruited the woman (Lebesa) was making some calls pretending to be talking to police officials.
“She was asking whether she should continue hiring more people and the person on the other side would tell her to continue.”
He said police had since found the phone that was used during the scam.
Lebesa appeared before the magistrate’s court last Wednesday and was charged with fraud.
She was granted bail of M3 000 and made to deposit surety worth M10 000.
She could not afford both the bail and surety so she was remanded in custody.
Masupha said he could not reveal the names of victims as they were going to testify in court as witnesses.
Masupha said there could be more people in other areas who were swindled by the agency.
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