This blog is part of a series on GPE’s initiative on early childhood education: BELDS (Better Early Learning and Development at Scale). The blog explains how the BELDS approach works through the experience in Lesotho, one of the four pilot countries.

Every day, 53,000¹ young children, from toddlers to age 5 years, attend pre-school in Lesotho. They learn the alphabet, numbers, and shapes and how to play with other children. Under the supervision of teachers and caregivers, the children are eager to come to school and learn and play together in a safe, stimulating environment.

But not all children are so lucky. Nearly 6 in 10 children aged 3–5 years receive no pre-school education with enrolment rates as low as 4 percent in remote and mountainous highland districts. These children lag behind their peers from the start of Grade 1 and often do not catch up.

Too many children don’t attend preschool

Globally, more than half of young children, or 175 million boys and girls, are not enrolled in pre-primary education, missing a critical step in preparing for school and lifelong learning.

By contrast, children enrolled in at least one year of pre-primary education are more likely to develop the critical skills they need to succeed in school, less likely to repeat grades or drop out of school, and therefore more able to fulfil their potential and contribute to peaceful and prosperous societies when they reach adulthood².

Pre-primary education provides the highest return on investment of all the education sub-sectors³. Yet it is often an under-funded sector. In Lesotho for example, the pre-primary sub-sector receives the smallest budget allocation from the national education budget, less than 1% of the national education budget for the last 10 years.

Lesotho is making pre-primary education a priority

But there is new momentum to prioritize pre-primary education in Lesotho. Recently, at the High-Level Political Forum on SDG 4.2, I, as Minister of Education and Training committed to strengthening the pre-primary sector in the country. With this commitment and with support from partners like UNICEF and GPE, we are confident that all 5-year-olds in Lesotho will soon benefit from pre-primary schooling.

For us, the education sector can be represented by four bridges. The bridge from home to early childhood education, the bridge to primary, the bridge to secondary, and the bridge to tertiary or higher education. A child’s educational journey involves crossing these bridges.  If the “early childhood bridge” is not strong, a child will have more challenges and difficulties in crossing the subsequent bridges. In Lesotho, we have to strengthen this first bridge.

Integrating early childhood education systematically into national education sector planning and policy implementation cycles is a key strategy to strengthen this “first bridge” and ensure children enter schools ready to learn and succeed in primary education and beyond.

In Maseru in June, the launch of the Better Early Learning and Development at Scale, supported this process.

Identifying priorities for ECE with all partners

More than 60 stakeholders from the Ministry of Education and Training from all 10 districts of Lesotho, Lesotho College of Education, National University of Lesotho, Civil Society organizations, UNICEF and the World Bank attended a BELDS inception workshop.

Stakeholders discussed and analyzed ECE opportunities and challenges related to planning, curriculum, teachers, resources and monitoring and evaluation in the pre-primary sub-sector. Based on this detailed analysis, strategies were developed to respond to the main challenges, with the aim of progressively growing the pre-primary system while improving quality and ensuring a focus on the most vulnerable children.

Importantly, key areas of focus were agreed upon, including:

• The prioritization of one year of pre-primary education through the expansion of one-year reception classrooms to every primary school in Lesotho;
• Dedicated and increased domestic financing for pre-primary education;
• Improving quality of pre-primary education by strengthening the quality of standards, curriculum and teacher training and,
• Engaging families and communities to support opportunities for learning and development among young children.

BELDS’ planning approach has a lot of promise in Lesotho. We are leveraging the findings of the BELDS workshop to inform the broader education sector analysis (ESA) that is currently under way. The ESA will inform the development of the education sector plan (ESP), which is currently under development. The ESP will outline the vision, priorities and strategies for the sector over the medium-term.  We want to remain ambitious and realistic in our ability to reach all Basotho children. So through the ESP process, we will discuss, plan and cost a strategy for the expansion of reception classes across the country by 2024.

We know from a recent national study⁴ on preschool quality in Lesotho, that reception classes with no parent fees show higher levels of quality and positive child outcomes compared to private preschools. Food pedagogy and availability of learning and play materials are also important in the context of early learning outcomes. A well-trained and motivated workforce is also key, which is why strengthening the pre-primary workforce, and implementing a new curriculum as the scale up the reception classes across the country takes place will be a priority.

At the High-Level Political Forum, when asked what the one thing is we should prioritize to make universal access to ECE a reality by 2030, Minister Rapapa replied, “Political will and engagement at the highest level.” We couldn’t agree more. The five-year scale up strategy for reception classes being developed in collaboration between the Ministry, UNICEF and other development partners, is a testament to this commitment and will help make Lesotho’s vision a reality.

GPE and UNICEF encourage partners and countries to engage in the BELDS initiative through upcoming peer learning events and a forthcoming global toolkit aimed to support countries with integrating early childhood education into Sector plans. Together we can make universal access to quality pre-primary education a reality for all children!