To a certain extent, many curriculum reforms that have been introduced in Lesotho schools have been unsuccessful. Teachers’ preparedness to implement these reforms has been the major factor for the failures. Involving teacher education providers in the preparation of teacher preparedness could improve the success rate of these school reforms. Therefore, understanding how education educators prepare teachers for curriculum reforms could assist to understand why school teachers often appear to be ill-prepared for curriculum reforms. Accordingly, this paper investigated the views of six teacher educators about their role in the preparation of teachers for curriculum reforms in Lesotho schools. A questionnaire was used to collect data that were analysed thematically. The results obtained indicate that: teacher educators are involved in a limited way in Lesotho curriculum reforms; and they have limited knowledge about the current reforms. As a result, their training practices do not target to prepare teachers for the reforms introduced in schools. This explains why many studies have found teachers to be ill-prepared for any curriculum reforms in Lesotho. These findings raise awareness on the issue that teacher educators should be involved in the reforms in Lesotho. Therefore, the main recommendation of this study is to engage teacher education providers so as to make the reforms successful.
Lesotho, like many developing countries, experiences challenges in providing quality early childhood services for children below 3 years of age. No formal education programme for children aged below 3 years exists yet, except the informal daycare centres run by inexperienced child-minders. At this tender age, the focus for child development and care must focus on child protection, healthy stimulation nutrition and health. Realizing the need for quality child services for the age cohort, Catholic Relief Services Lesotho introduced a programme named Whose Child is This? (WCIT) that focuses on provision of quality services for the children. This chapter shares Lesotho’s experiences in addressing delivery of quality informal early learning environments. A case study of one daycare centre in the Maseru Industrial settlement was undertaken focusing on practices and services rendered to children aged below 3. New lessons learned were the need for partnerships among agencies serving children’s needs, and collaboration with parents strong advocacy for implementation of the Nurturing Care Framework is critical for all ECCD service providers. Institutions of higher learning need to step forward to produce research evidence on importance of strong foundations for children aged below 3 years.
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