An atom once an abstract phenomenon to learners at the St. Barnabas School, is displayed on an interactive screen. Grade 8 students are actively adding blocks to the structure during Ms. Phamotsi class. As the lesson is through simulation and video, one enthusiastic learner is in front of the class while the other learners actively participate.
The visual display helps to assist the learners to grasp aspects that are complex in mathematics and science. To equip the teachers to use technology as they instruct the learners, the World Bank’s $7.1 million Lesotho Basic Education Strengthening Project (BESP) supported online trainings across the country to increase capacity and contribute to education outcomes. The project’s online program, developed in collaboration with the University of the Free State, enhanced teachers' pedagogical skills and demonstrated clearly the potential of technology-enabled professional development. The 222 teachers who participated received certification upon completion.
“I enjoyed the training that has given us as teachers a new experience in the classroom. Our learners are excited to attend our classes, and their understanding of difficult concepts has increased. On a personal level, the training has rejuvenated my love for teaching and helped me to improve my skills. I am appreciative of the role of technology in bridging the gap in the classroom,” says Ms. Phamotsi, Science Teacher.
Teachers received laptops and basic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training to take online training courses at their own pace and they received continuous support by joining a WhatsApp group administered by the training implementation partners.
This group served as a peer learning platform to exchange lessons learned, best practices, and share questions and answers. Teachers who did not have electricity at school were provided with a portable solar panel to provide access. Each laptop was loaded with training content which the teachers will be able to continue using.
Early Childhood Care and Development
BESP, which closed in February 2025 after three years of implementation, aimed to improve student retention and teaching quality in junior secondary schools in targeted community councils of Lesotho. It also supported the roll out of a new curriculum to strengthen early childhood care and development (ECCD) service delivery.
“I am very happy to be using the new curriculum to design my lessons. This new curriculum, premised on learning and play, is helping to ensure that our learners start off their education on a solid foundation. With the previous curriculum (developed in 1988), it was hard to break down concepts,” says Ms. Matumo Maubelle, ECCD teacher at the Rasetimela School. When one enters her class of 28 they see the different booths that are used as learning corners such as literacy (English and Sesotho), life skills, and numeracy. These are set up to ensure that the learners develop mentally, socially, and physically and this helps them to successfully transition to the next stage of learning. Reception classes that are attached to public primary schools provide one year of free education for 5-year-olds before they transition to Grade 1. The project supported 352 reception classes and ECCD centers.
The project trained 81% of the 754 early childhood instructors and as a result, literacy among 5-year-olds increased from 71% to 85%, and numeracy from 63.6% to 77.2%, showing consistent improvements across genders.
Student retention in junior secondary schools
Many children from poor and rural households face significant barriers to staying in and completing school. Junior secondary education is not free and the burden of paying for education is disproportionately high for the poorest households, in terms of both direct and indirect costs. These economic challenges coupled with other issues contribute highly to drop-outs.
To mitigate this, BESP established 259 youth clubs in 69 secondary schools. The clubs were set up as a “safe space” to empower adolescent girls and boys and learn and enable them to make informed decisions-including about their schooling-by equipping them with relevant life-skills, information and knowledge including on reproductive health topics. The youth clubs also served as an important platform to raise adolescents’ awareness of Gender-Based Violence/Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (GBV/SEA) and the approaches to prevent, mitigate, and respond to GBV/SEA. Clubs also can refer adolescents to additional social services and support. Over 3,400 learners have benefited from them.
“Through the youth club I have gained confidence in myself, and I am now conversant in different life subjects such as mental health. We would break down these subjects in the clubs and this equipped me with life lessons,” says Moleboheng Morotoli, a Grade 11 learner at St. Barnabas Secondary School. The project recommends that the government should integrate the clubs into the school system to ensure long-term sustainability beyond the project.
The Child Grant Program was expanded through targeted cash transfers for the procurement of school uniforms, along with community awareness initiatives on the importance of secondary education. Through these interventions, the project significantly reduced student dropout rates from 27% in 2021 to 19.8% in 2025, surpassing the target of 22%.
Sustainability and plans
Ensuring that project’s impact is sustained is a high priority for the Government of Lesotho. “When it comes to sustainability measures, particularly the training of the mathematics and science teachers, there was an engagement of local institutions such as National University of Lesotho and Lesotho College of Education. We have also integrated online teacher training within our continuous professional development for teachers across pre-primary, primary, and secondary schools,” said Honourable Ntoi Rapapa, Minister of Education and Training.
While BESP (funded by the Global Partnership for Education) has closed, the World Bank remains active in education through the $20 million Lesotho Education Improvement Project (LEIP) which is supporting improvements to the quality of teaching and enhanced physical learning conditions in targeted primary and secondary schools.
“To sustain the gains, we will use lessons from BESP to successfully implement LEIP. As the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, human capital development is one of the key objectives and it is therefore incumbent on us to continue to fund education beyond what we do. We have been given a launchpad to continue to fund education in a better way so that it contributes to economic development,” said Honourable. Dr. Retselisitsoe Matlanyane, Mnister of Finance and Development Planning.
LEIP, which became effective in 2024, will support the construction of adequate infrastructure to accommodate growing student populations. This will entail the construction of classrooms, latrines, laboratories, and workshops and is set to benefit over 100,000 students across primary and secondary schools.
