(MENAFN- The Post) MPHARANE -WHEN educationist Lelingoana Moroke arrived at Mount Carmel High School in Mohale''s Hoek''s Mpharane village as the new principal in 2012, his first thought was to close down the area''s only high school.
The school had a paltry 45 students against the minimum 150 required for a school to operate legally in Lesotho.
Twenty sat for the Junior Certificate examinations that year. All of them failed. Only five sat for Form E examinations. They too failed.
''The situation was so dire that at first I did not know what to do,'' Moroke said last week.
''In short, there was no school,'' said Moroke, who was coming from ''a well performing school'' in Leribe.
''When I arrived here, I thought I would find the kind of students with basic understanding of their subjects but what I found was totally awful,'' he lamented.
Instead of closing down the school, he thought of taking other less drastic measures. First, he fired all the teachers and replaced them with fresh college graduates.
The following year, Moroke encouraged parents to enrol their children with the school, while those who had failed their Junior Certificate examinations were forced to repeat classes from Form A.
''My assessment was that they lacked a strong foundation in secondary education, hence I decided that they should go through the entire syllabus for the second time,'' he said.
At the end of the year, all who wrote exams passed and proceeded to Form D. But one problem remained: inadequate books.
Like many parts of Lesotho, the hard-to-reach area lacked a school or public library. No newspaper, magazine or other forms of literature reached the village. The only literature to reach villagers there would either come from the church or school textbooks.
Today, the school, owned by the Roman Catholic church, boasts of 420 students and is doing well, in large part thanks to the efforts of well-wishers.
One such well-wisher, well-known journalist and a native of the area, Mothae Moletsane, helped set up the school''s library in 2013.
For the first time, students had access to a wide range of reading materials.
''Since then I saw the learners improving, going from strength to strength,'' said Moroke.
Moroke said the school started participating in regional debates and as years went by it won the contests ''because now they had access to a lot of information''.
Moroke said for the past three years, the school has been among the top three performers in the Mohale''s Hoek district.
''Had it not because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we were going to be the number one this year. We are working hard and the students too seem to enjoy competition with other schools.''
''I want to thank Ntate Mothae for the library,'' he said.
Seeing the improvements, Moletsane decided to work to empower the entire village.
Last Friday, his labour bore fruits as the area witnessed the launch of a community public library with the help of the Maluti Rotary Club and Books for Lesotho, an association based in Australia.
This was after they turned an old, unused Credit Union building into a community library.
The Mpharane community depends on agriculture for food and income but villagers had very little information on how to improve their farming methods. The new community library is set to change that as information permeates through the village.
At the launch, villagers were visibly elated, even though some said they were unaware how a library functions.
''There is a thing at the back of my mind that says this collection of books in this building is good for the village. But I don''t know how,'' said one elderly villager Tebello Ramakatsa.
''Mamoleboheng Moshoeshoe, another elderly villager, said she understood that a library is ''the most important asset for any community''.
Unlike Ramakatsa, Moshoeshoe eloquently talked about the importance of having a library in the village.
''The deteriorating performance of our school was harrowing, we were embarrassed as parents and residents of Mpharane. But now that our children are being introduced to books I am hopeful that things will improve for the better,'' said Moshoeshoe.
''An ignorant society is destined to peril,'' said village chief, Phala Phala.
''This library will have newspapers from which the unemployed ones will read job adverts. Newspapers are full of such opportunities,'' said Chief Phala.
''The library will help import knowledge from other areas of the country and beyond,'' he added.
Chieftainess ''Mamohale Mohale, the area chief of Pontšeng, appealed to all people in villages under her jurisdiction who have university education to imitate Moletsane, the journalist.
''We have many of them in our villages. I appeal to them to come back home and help us out of poverty,'' the Chieftainess said.
''There are 10 primary schools here and all of them depend on Mount Carmel for further education. May our children who went to university look back wherever they are and identify what they can do for their people,'' she said.
The local councillor, Mahlatsi Makakole, said there are 70 university graduates from the area ''who can hold hands with Mothae to develop this area''.
Makakole says the library ''is a tower on which the community can stand and study the whole world''.
''We need more people like Mothae in Mpharane. Our villages can develop quite quickly,'' Makakole said.
Moletsane, who kept smiling throughout the launch ceremony, said the journey had just started.
''It is our time and chance to pave the way for the next generation,'' Moletsane said.
Caswell Tlali
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