Lesotho is a landlocked country located in southern Africa, surrounded by South Africa. The country has a population of approximately 2.2 million people, and is known for its mountainous terrain, which has earned it the nickname "The Kingdom in the Sky." Lesotho is also known for being one of the highest-altitude countries in the world, with the lowest point in the country being 1,400 metres above sea level. The country's economy is largely based on agriculture, with maize, sorghum, and wheat being the main crops grown. Lesotho also has a growing textile industry, which is largely supported by foreign investment. Despite the country's natural beauty and resources, Lesotho faces a number of challenges, including high levels of poverty and HIV/AIDS, which is one of the highest rates in the world. The government has made significant efforts to address these issues, but there is still a long way to go in terms of improving the quality of life for the people of Lesotho. Overall, Lesotho is a country with a rich cultural heritage and natural beauty, but also faces a number of social and economic challenges that must be addressed in order for it to thrive.
In Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development, John Aerni-Flessner studies the post-independence emergence of Lesotho as an example of the uneven ways in which people experienced development at the end of colonialism in Africa. The book posits that development became the language through which Basotho (the people of Lesotho) conceived of the dream of independence, both before and after the 1966 transfer of power. While many studies of development have focused on the perspectives of funding governments and agencies, Aerni-Flessner approaches development as an African-driven process in Lesotho. The book examines why both political leaders and ordinary people put their faith in development, even when projects regularly failed to alleviate poverty. He argues that the potential promise of development helped make independence real for Africans. The book utilizes government archives in four countries, but also relies heavily on newspapers, oral histories, and the archives of multilateral organizations like the World Bank. It will interest scholars of decolonization, development, empire, and African and South African history.
This Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for the Kingdom of Lesotho presents a determined plan in pursuance of high and sustainable equity-based economic growth. It contains medium-term objectives and strategies to address the major challenges facing the country. These challenges include employment creation and income generation, and improving quality of and access to education and health services. Lesotho plans to deal boldly with its trading and investment partners by exploiting the opportunities inherent in the process of globalization under such mechanisms as the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act.
This book is organised into 16 chapters written by different authors concerning diverse themes on education in Lesotho, ranging from early childhood development to tertiary education. As narrated in the book, formal education started in 1838 in Lesotho after the arrival of the first group of missionaries the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society in 1833, followed by the Roman Catholic Church in 1862 and the Anglican Church in 1876. From the time they arrived, the three pioneer churches engaged in fierce competition and scrambled to establish their missions and schools across the country in order to expand their denominational territory. As a result, to this day, these mainstream churches operate the majority of schools in partnership with the state, which regulates and coordinates education. Lesothos educational arrangement is unique in the sense that the government runs public schools on private property; a situation that occasionally causes tensions between the two over the control of schools. Despite Lesothos long history of education, not much has been written on the education of the country. Therefore, this book attempts to fill that gap by chronicling the history of education, and the philosophical and sociocultural context within which education is provided. It explores the structure, organisation and management of education at different levels, educational policies and curriculum aspects. It also looks at early childhood development, which is not directly funded by the government, but has increasingly been recognised as a critical phase that readies the child for school and improves educational efficiency. The book also highlights that Lesotho is a low-income country, with unacceptably high levels of unemployment and poverty. Partly because of these and the skewed government priorities, the standard of facilities, and the quality of teachers and learning conditions in rural schools are generally poor compared to those of urban schools. These socioeconomic inequalities are manifested by the stark differences in achievement between the urban and rural schools, with the rural students generally falling behind their urban counterparts in the national examinations. In order to tackle this problem and provide educational access for all children, the government introduced Free Primary Education in 2000. However, this takeover by the government appears to have somehow diminished parental involvement and accountability in education. The book further acknowledges that Lesotho has experienced political tensions since its independence in 1966, and advocates the introduction of democratic education in schools in order to interrupt a cycle of social and political violence by nurturing a democratic culture from an early age. At the higher education level, the challenges revolve around low state funding that render higher education institutions unviable and uncompetitive and trigger brain drain, poor educational quality and a curriculum not aligned to the needs of the country and the labour market. Finally, although Lesotho is used as a context for this book, the style of discussion is scholarly and ultimately makes it relevant to an international audience.
In this book, the authors outline the features that make Lesotho unique, tracing its history and discussing the peculiar structure of Lesotho's labor reserve economy and the effects it has on development, politics, society, and culture.
The power sector has undergone a liberalization process both in industrialized and developing countries, involving market regimes, as well as ownership structure. These processes have called for new and innovative concepts, affecting both the operation of existing hydropower plants and transmission facilities, as well as the development and implementation of new projects. At the same time a sharper focus is being placed on environmental considerations. In this context it is important to emphasize the obvious benefits of hydropower as a clean, renewable and sustainable energy source. It is however also relevant to focus on the impact on the local environment during the planning and operation of hydropower plants. New knowledge and methods have been developed that make it possible to mitigate the local undesirable effects of such projects. Development and operation of modern power systems require sophisticated technology. Continuous research and development in this field is therefore crucial to maintaining hydropower as a competitive and environmentally well-accepted form of power generation.
AIDS has devastated communities across southern Africa. In Lesotho, where a quarter of adults are infected, the wide-ranging implications of the disease have been felt in every family, disrupting key aspects of social life. In Infected Kin, Ellen Block and Will McGrath argue that AIDS is fundamentally a kinship disease, examining the ways it transcends infected individuals and seeps into kin relations and networks of care. While much AIDS scholarship has turned away from the difficult daily realities of those affected by the disease, Infected Kin uses both ethnographic scholarship and creative nonfiction to bring to life the joys and struggles of the Basotho people at the heart of the AIDS pandemic. The result is a book accessible to wide readership, yet built upon scholarship and theoretical contributions that ensure Infected Kin will remain relevant to anyone interested in anthropology, kinship, global health, and care. Supplementary instructor resources (https://www.csbsju.edu/sociology/faculty/anthropology-teaching-resources/infected-kin-teaching-resources)
Looks at the way in which social, political, economic, and cultural factors can influence the language classroom. This book also contains practical suggestions on how to cope with the professional problems and misunderstandings which can occur in overseas contexts. It is useful for native-speaker teachers of English preparing to work overseas.
