This post refers to the previous posts about the school books of my Form B students and my visit with a government official.
After the visit with Mr Mahloka, Chief Education Officer of Secondary Schools, I was angry. I wrote to the World Bank Headquarters in America to inform them of the way their money (your money) is being handled here in Lesotho. The money used to buy school books for Lesotho students through this book rental scheme is World Bank money, not Lesotho government money. I still haven't received a reply from the World Bank. Do they actually care how well these projects of theirs turn out? Or do they just send off your hard-earned money and then pat themselves on the back for 'developing the Third World'?
Regardless, I found a wonderful response to the second letter I wrote that morning. It was from the biggest newspaper in English here in Lesotho, the Public Eye it's called.
I wrote a letter to the editor informing him about the book situation and my meeting with Mr Mahloka. They printed the letter, witholding my name. Then they took my letter to the Ministry of Education's public relations officer. My letter was reprinted in the next week's edition as well, along with the PRO's response. She didn't actually say much of substance, except that she did admit responsibility for harming the students' education through this book rental scheme disaster. I was happy to hear that acknowledgement. Also, that following week the state-owned Radio Lesotho talked about the book issue on its morning show and a Sesotho newspaper called Moeletsi oa Basotho ran a cover story about the Form B books which was headlined 'Education in Lesotho falls'.
I happened to run into the news editor of Public Eye the other day here in the capital and I thanked him for his help. It seems he has really made the country aware of this issue.
And at long last, in this week's newspapers there are stories about the Minister of Education having finally issued the first Form B books at certain schools last week. There are still no books at my school, but apparently they should be on the way. We ought to have them for the third quarter of the school year. Hurray!