A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of the Masters degree in Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 15th March 2016 / In Lesotho the development of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy is considered a crucial milestone in the history of education in the country as it is the first official curriculum document to be published post-independence. The policy advocates an integrated approach with a merge of eleven subjects that were taught at primary school into five learning areas. Integrated curriculum is adopted as a means to make education relevant in an attempt to address the socio-economic needs of the country. Curriculum revision towards integrated curriculum is done in phases, and the process of implementing the new curriculum is currently at primary school level. In 2013 implementation started in grade one, two and three, it has moved progressively such that in 2015 implementation was in grade five. The aim of this research was therefore to explore challenges primary school teachers face in implementing integrated curriculum. This study intended to find out how grade three and grade five teachers’ interpret and enact integrated curriculum. The study followed a qualitative case study method in which six teachers from three schools participated. The data was gathered through semi structured interviews in order to find out how teachers understand integrated curriculum. To further understand how teachers interpret the curriculum lesson observations were conducted. The study was informed by Bernstein (1971) concepts of classification and framing as they provided the language for description of their pedagogic choices. The lessons were coded and classification and framing values were designated. The findings revealed that in two of the three schools the teachers attempted to implement the curriculum, however in terms of classification and framing their pedagogic understanding was limited and varied. The teachers’ understandings of integrated curriculum across the schools varied. Teachers in School A understood the curriculum to mean making links between everyday knowledge while the understanding of teachers in school B was interconnection between concepts across learning areas. In the third school the teachers were not implementing the curriculum; findings showed that they lacked understanding of integrated curriculum as all their lessons were strongly framed and classified. In all three schools the findings reflected that teachers’ pedagogic choices were related to their understanding and interpretation of the curriculum. Given this, there is still a need for further teacher development and follow up in schools. Key terms Curriculum reform, integrated curriculum, pedagogy

In the Lesotho primary education system, the language policy states that the mother tongue (Sesotho) should be used up to Standard Three (this is the third year of schooling in Lesotho) as the medium of instruction. English is prescribed as the medium of instruction from Standard Four upwards. This sudden change presents enormous challenges for teachers, especially in Standard Four. The purpose of my study was to investigate Standard Four teachers’ curriculum development experiences of the transition from the mother tongue to English as medium of instruction. The study also sought to understand how teachers plan and teach at this level. This was a qualitative interpretive study that adopted a case study methodology. Participants were purposively selected. They were three Sesotho-speaking Standard Four teachers in three different urban schools. In addressing the research questions, data was generated through qualitative methods such as semi-structured teachers’ interviews, classroom observations, document analysis and a personal reflective journal. Data was analyzed and interpreted through an open coding process. The findings revealed that these teachers experienced several challenges in the use of English as the medium of instruction. Teachers were faced with three key issues that they had to deal with, namely, overcoming their own perceptions of their competence in English, their low sense of self efficacy with regard to teaching at this transition class, and the difficulty with teaching pupils in a second language before these pupils had gained proficiency in their mother tongue. Teachers regularly employed codeswitching as a strategy to make meaning in their classrooms. The study recommends pre- and in-service teacher professional development, and a review of the Lesotho language policy in the primary school. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This study aims to capture the challenges and tensions that arise in donor funded curriculum projects in Lesotho. Through an interpretive case study research design I investigated these challenges and tensions in two projects relevant to Education for Sustainable Development, namely the Lesotho Environmental Support Project (LEESP) and the Population/Family Education (POP/FLE) projects which are donor funded curriculum projects funded by DANIDA and UNFPA respectively. A review of donor funded curriculum projects in the field of environmental education/Education for Sustainable Development was undertaken to provide background and a theoretical context for the study. It highlighted different challenges and implementation tensions experienced by other similar projects in other countries. At the heart of such projects lies a particular political economy, which is based on development assistance to poor countries. Such development assistance is constructed around concepts of need, participation and innovation, and donor-recipient relationships. It is structured around a system of governance and management that normally uses logical framework planning as its main methodology. This political economy has shaped the two donor funded projects that were considered in this study, and has shaped many of the tensions and challenges identified in the study. To investigate the two projects, data for this study was generated through in-depth interviews, document analysis and focus group interviews, with people who had been involved with the projects at the national level. The data generation process did not involve the schools where the projects were ultimately implemented, as it was seeking to identify how local institutions such as the National Curriculum Development Centre could support better synergies between donor funded initiatives and the local context. The findings of the study revealed the ambivalent nature of donor initiatives, and identified that the political economy and donor-recipient relations influence the projects. Aspects such as the design and management of projects, the processes associated with introducing innovation in educational ideas and paradigms, pedagogical issues, and staff contributions and ownership were identified as some of the key tensions that existed in the projects. Other factors such as poor capacity levels of local staff, non-alignment with existing structures, inadequate sustainability mechanisms and the difficulty of the envisaged integration of new paradigm thinking (methods and approaches) into the existing curriculum framework were also significant tensions, given the positivist history of the Lesotho curriculum. The study recommends the need to establish mechanisms for working with donors to tackle the tensions that arise in such projects within longer-term donor assistance. It proposes that government should expedite the development of policy on donor coordination. Both donors and the NCDC need to put mechanisms in place to allow for debate and discussions on innovations brought in by the donors in relation to local needs. The study further recommends that in cases where more than one donor exists, the NCDC and the donors should work towards developing synergies between the different initiatives to avoid duplication and overlap. Finally, there is a need for projects to use bottom-up approaches for the design and formulation of projects to ensure ownership.

This study sought to explore the interface between environmental education (EE) and school geography with a view to understanding a process of curriculum reform in the context of Lesotho. The research was based on the curriculum reform process that was initiated by a Danish donor-funded project, known as the Lesotho Environmental Education Support Project (LEESP), which operated from 2001 to 2004. Driven by a sustainable development imperative, the project was intended to assist Lesotho in the implementation of local action for Agenda 21 by introducing environmental education into the formal education system. Deviating slightly from much published research on geographical and environmental education, which focuses on how geography contributes to environmental education, this study explored how the latter has shaped the former in terms of content and pedagogy. Using the lens of critical curriculum theory, I sought to understand the political nature of the curriculum and of curriculum change, focusing on the LEESP curriculum policy development, dissemination and implementation at classroom level. The study employed Bernstein's concepts of classification and framing to illuminate issues of power and control between discourses, and between teachers and learners. Operating within an interpretive qualitative research orientation, the study used a case study method focusing on five secondary/high schools in Lesotho. The data was generated through document analysis, interviews and classroom observations. The study examined the assumptions, values and ideologies underpinning environmental education curriculum intentions as reflected in LEESP documents. It also investigated the social process of conceptualising and disseminating environmental education to understand the challenges faced as education practitioners made sense of environmental education innovations in the specific contexts of Lesotho, and how these could possibly influence what happens at the classroom level. The analysis of the LEESP documents revealed that while there are many areas of synergy between the LEESP environmental education policy guidelines and the national education ideals in Lesotho, achievement of the transformational visions of action competence, which was the overarching concept in the reform process, would require major structural changes. The study also highlights issues of participation, contestations, tensions and contradictions associated with the conceptualisation and dissemination of environmental education. At implementation level, there is a disjuncture between environmental education policy intentions and practice. Geography teachers in the research schools generally understood the existence of environmental education in their schools in terms of environmental management. The findings also revealed that while there is generally a strong environmental dimension in geography content, as reflected in both curriculum materials and classroom practice, the subject still retains its disciplinary boundaries and makes little use of knowledge from other subjects or the everyday knowledge of the learners. Finally, it emerged that while the geography teachers in their rhetoric espoused learner-centred methods, in practice they generally employed traditional teacher-centred and book-centred methods. The study concludes that a lack of change in school geography in Lesotho, of the sort envisaged in LEESP, may be attributed to contextual and structural factors such as an overemphasis on examinations, and certain perceptions on the part of teachers and learners embedded in the history and culture of their society. A model of teacher professional development capable of supporting curriculum change is therefore proposed.

Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / Includes glossary of terms / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the study presented, two English curriculum documents were analysed, one from South Africa and the other from Lesotho. The analysis was focused on English first additional language curriculum documents for what is known as Grade 12 in South Africa and Form E in Lesotho. The two curricula are both informed by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), with the concept of communicative competence, which is the ability to use the linguistic system effectively and appropriately, at its core. The two curricula are distinguished from each other as being locally developed (South Africa) and internationally developed (Lesotho) curriculum documents. Research contributions on the role that English plays in today‟s language learning and teaching context introduce the study . An overview is provided of the CLT appr oach and the essentials and difficulties perceived in CLT introduction in Africa and particularly Southern Africa. Jacobs and Farrell‟s (2003) evaluative framework for CLT is proposed as an indication of the extent to which CLT is evident in curricula. Ag ainst this background, the question arises of how CLT is realised in English first additional language curriculum documents for Grade 12 in South Africa and for Form E in Lesotho . In answering the question, a qualitative content analysis method that sets in interpretivist paradigm is employed for analysis of the curricula, and coding is applied using the evaluative framework proposed by Jacobs and Farrell (2003). The analysis attempts to evaluate the two English first additional language curriculum documents (curricula plans ). First, an exploration of the structures of the two curriculum documents was done. Second, the evaluation of the curricula against Jacobs and Farrell‟s (2003 :10 ) “ eight changes in language teaching and learning ” followed. Third, the comparison of the two curricula was carried out. Evaluation and comparison processes were carried out for the purpose of determining which of the two curricula best realises CLT. Reflecting on what is needed in the choice of English first additional language curricula, the conclusion is reached that (a) curricula need to be explicit in describing texts for language teaching, (b) they need to include oral and listening proficiency, and (c) a locally developed curriculum realises the CLT elements better than an internationally developed curriculum document. This means that learners‟ needs are be tter accommodated when local context and situations are in use. With this, learners bring their learning experiences as close as possible to their own real-life situations and thereby contribute towards language development. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie analiseer twee kurrikulumdokumente vir die onderrig van Engels: een Suid-Afrikaans en die ander van Lesotho. Die analise fokus op Engels as eerste addisionele taal kurrikula vir wat as Graad 12 bekend staan in Suid-Afrika en as Vorm E in Lesotho. Beide kurrikula is in die Kommunikatiewe Taalonderrigtradisie ontwikkel; ʼn tradisie wat vereis dat die taalstruktuur effektief in realistiese situasies gebruik word. Die twee kurrikula word onderskei deur die feit dat die Suid-Afrikaanse een plaaslik ontwikkel is en die Lesotho onderwyssisteem gebruik ʼn internasionaal - ontwikkelde kurrikulum, die Cambridge Overseas English Certificate. Die studie word ingelei deur ʼn bespreking oor die r ol wat Engels speel in die huidige leer- en onderrigkonteks. ʼn Oorsig word gegee van Kommunikatiewe Taalonderrig (KTO), gevolg deur ʼn bespreking van die elemente en probleme wat ervaar word met KTO in Afrika en in Suider- Afrika in die besonder. ʼn Raamwerk, voorgestel deur Jacobs en Farrell (2003) vir die evaluering van KTO, word voorgestel as ʼn aanduiding van die mate waartoe kurrikula die beginsels en praktyke van KTO insluit. Die probleem wat hierdie studie bestudeer is die mate waartoe KTO manifesteer in die Graad 12 Engels Eerste Addisionele Taal kurrikulum in Suid-Afrika en in die Vorm E kurrikulum, die Cambridge Overseas English Certificate, in Lesotho. Die navorsingsbenadering is interpretatief en kwalitatiewe inhoudsanalise word gebruik om die kurrikula te analiseer. Deur die raamwerk van Jacobs en Farrell (2003) te gebruik, word dit moontlik om die twee kurrikulum dokumente te analiseer en te vergelyk . As ʼn eerste stap word die struktuur van beide dokumente bespreek, gevolg deur ʼn evaluering van elke kurrikulum in terme van die agt veranderings in onderrig en leer wat veronderstel is om KTO te karakteriseer (Jacobs en Farrell 2003:10). Hierdie twee stappe is nodig om die finale vergelyking van die twee kurrikula te kan doen sodat die mate waartoe hulle KTO manifesteer, aangedui kan word. Hierdie analise kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat die Engels eerste addisionele taalkurrikulum in Lesotho (a) duideliker riglyne moet verskaf vir die aard van tekste wat vir Engels taalonderrig gebruik kan word, (b) dat hierdie kurrikulum mondelinge- en luistervaardighede moet insluit en (c) dat die plaaslik-ontwerpte, Suid-Afrikaanse kurrikulum beter rekenskap gee van KTO as die Cambridge Overseas English Certificate, die internasionaal-ontwikkelde dokument wat in Lesotho gebruik word. As gevolg van die vergelyking met die Jacobs en Farrell raamwerk, blyk dit dat leerders se behoeftes beter ondervang kan word wanneer plaaslike kontekste en situasies gebruik word omdat leerders op hulle eie leerervarings kan staatmaak om hulle taalvermoë te ontwikkel.

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences that the principals encounter when managing curriculum change at the secondary schools in the Maseru district. The study is qualitative in nature and employed a case study to investigate principals’ experiences with the LGCSE curriculum change. This study used Kotter’s theory of change management as a theoretical foundation for the analysis of the data. Semi-structured in-depth –interviews and non-participant observations were used to collect data. A total of six principals from urban and rural secondary schools were interviewed and observed. Content analysis was employed to analyse data in this study. The findings revealed that the secondary school principals in the Maseru district lack skills and knowledge to manage the LGCSE curriculum change. The findings showed that the majority of the principals were not thoroughly trained on how to manage and implement the LGCSE. The principals needed continuous support from the Ministry of Education and Training. There was also a need for relevant and adequate resources to support curriculum changes. This study revealed that most principals delegated the instructional roles to the Head of Departments and the deputy principals to manage lesson plans, selection of teaching and learning materials as well as monitoring lesson presentations. This study found that most principals concentrated on administrative roles. Team work and school based workshops were found to be the strategies that principals used to manage the LGCSE curriculum change. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management)