Strengthening Education Inspectorate

1. BACKGROUND

The supervision of education in Lesotho is managed by the Inspectorate, a critical division within the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET). The Inspectorate holds the statutory mandate for enforcing quality assurance, maintaining institutional discipline, and safeguarding educational standards across the national school system.

The basic education sector encompasses a vast institutional network comprising approximately 200 pre-primary schools, 1,300 primary schools, and 355 secondary schools. To monitor this extensive network, the MoET relies on a structurally diverse workforce consisting of:

# 3 Regional Inspectors providing macro-level geographic oversight.

# 14 Subject Inspectors and Subject Advisors driving secondary and specialized quality control.

# 42 School Inspectors and 35 District Resource Teachers (DRTs) delivering direct institutional and pedagogical support. Under the statutory framework of the Lesotho Education Act of 2010, amended 2021, this multi-tiered oversight body is legally empowered to enforce compliance, guarantee effective curriculum delivery, investigate professional and disciplinary breaches by teaching staff, and formally recommend the dissolution of non-functional or incompetent school boards. Furthermore, to protect the integrity of the quality assurance process, the Act

criminalizes non-compliance; thus, obstructing an Inspector or field officer in the execution of their official duties constitutes a punishable legal offence.

Currently, the Inspectorate's role focuses heavily on monitoring institutional compliance across the entire basic education spectrum (pre-primary through secondary education). To ensure accountability, Inspectors evaluate school adherence to a wide range of sectoral frameworks, including the Free Primary Education Policy, the Lesotho Basic Education Curriculum Policy (2021), the Inclusive Education Policy (2018), ICT in Basic Education Policy (2024), the Prevention and Management of Learner Pregnancy Policy (2024) and many more.

Despite this broad mandate, the Inspectorate currently operates without a Schools Inspection Policy or Policy

Guidelines. This lack of a policy guide compromises standardization, limits enforcement power, and slows down systemic quality improvements. Developing this policy guidelines will provide the legal, operational and strategic framework necessary to modernize school oversight in Lesotho.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) is implementing reforms aimed at strengthening education sector governance, accountability, quality assurance, and evidence-based decision making. A well-functioning Inspectorate is critical for monitoring education quality, supporting school improvement, assessing compliance with national standards, and generating reliable evidence on system performance.

Therefore, to elevate learning standards and basic education quality in Lesotho, the Ministry of Education and

Training, with the support from UNICEF requires expert technical assistance to design Basic Education Schools# Inspection Policy guidelines, alongside a robust implementation framework and communication strategy. Operating under the direct supervision of Chief Education Officer (CEO) Secondary, this assignment will modernize internal and external school monitoring frameworks while strengthening capacity of the Inspectorate to support design and implementation of research that measures system performance. Ultimately, this initiative will optimize access, efficiency, equity and overall relevance of the national education system, driving superior academic outcomes for all Basotho learners.