Motsamai Mokotjo
PRIME Minister Pakalitha Mosisili has called on management at institutions of higher learning to nip “partisan political activities” in the bud, saying they were inimical to Lesotho’s development.
The premier made the remarks in a speech read on his behalf on Friday by Education and Training Minister Mahali Phamotse during the Lesotho College of Education’s (LCE) 20th graduation ceremony.
Of the 1 367 who graduated at the LCE grounds, 619 were awarded a Diploma in Education Primary Distance Learning, 291 a Diploma in Education Secondary, 12 a Diploma in Education Secondary Technology Studies, 390 a Diploma in Education Primary, 51 a Certificate in Early Childhood Education while four received an Advanced Diploma in Special Education.
The diploma graduates had completed their studies in three years, part-timers in four years, certificate holders in two years while the advanced diploma took one year.
Dr Mosisili said he had noted with concern the “worrying incidents of instability” at the LCE. The college had of late been rocked by squabbles which saw staff downing tools while others were suspended for misconduct.
“While I recognise the rights of workers to express their needs in relation to pay and conditions of service, I have always believed that there are many more dignified ways of dealing with and expressing these needs,” he said.
“Indeed, one of the commitments of this coalition government is to ensure that workers’ legitimate rights are respected and expressed through acceptable channels. Instability of any kind is inimical to development. Good teachers can hardly be produced in an environment characterised by one strike action after the other.
“Yet for us to realise the Vision 2020 commitment to Lesotho that is ‘stable and at peace with itself’, we will need good education and good teachers.”
The premier said for the LCE to realise its mission to produce competent teachers they must focus on their core activities of producing well-rounded and grounded professionals with the requisite skills to be creative and adapt to ever changing local and global environment.
“Accordingly, I may seize this opportunity to appeal to the institution’s management and staff to find an amicable and long-lasting solution to this daunting challenge,” said Dr Mosisili.
“There is need for a number of professional and personal attributes and values as well as civic consciousness and commitment on the part of all those that serve teacher education and training.”
He said parliament, in 1997, granted LCE autonomy to enable it to operate efficiently and effectively with minimum civil service bureaucratic bottle-necks.
“With autonomy, the government intended to make the college a better institution that would creatively develop needed programmes of study and turn out teachers of requisite quality. Has that been the case?
“Have we done any tracer studies and/or investigated the performance of the college graduates in the nation’s schools and the country’s education system? What do the inspectors’ reports tell us?” the premier queried.
“Has the autonomy not opened up the college to other interests? There has been a worrying trend in recent times of our institutions of higher education getting too deeply involved in partisan political activities.
“Management of institutions have to find ways of dealing with this trend. This is a trend that needs to be dealt with especially in institutions that prepare the nation’s professionals such teachers, nurses, pharmacists and others.”
He also emphasised the need to review programmes of study in terms of relevance and the extent to which they prepare teachers for careers in the 21st century.
“Our education must therefore produce citizens that will not only cope with advances in technology but those who will also be abreast of these advances,” noted Dr Mosisili.
On his part, LCE Rector John Oliphant said the institution had been beset with daunting financial challenges and friction between management, the lecturers’ union and students.
“The year 2013/2014 was the most difficult and counterproductive for the college. There were a lot of strikes and we washed our dirty linen in public,” said Dr Oliphant.
“There was also a total disregard of the rule of law in the full view of the students.”
He expressed optimism that they had learnt from the mistakes made in the preceding years.
On the way forward, Dr Oliphant said LCE had established partnerships with a South African mining firm, the University of South Africa and the National University of Lesotho to help the college operate more effectively.
He added that given the college’s “great potential” plans were afoot to consequently morph LCE into a university called University College of Lesotho in future.
University status was achievable, Dr Oliphant noted, because “three quarters of the staff had post graduate qualifications”.
In his remarks, the graduands’ representative, Mohau Thora, appealed for the Teaching Service Department to deploy them to different schools throughout the country adding that “it is disheartening to see the 2010 graduands still jobless”.