A Systemic Exploration of Lesotho’s Basic Education through Interactive Management

• Published in: Systemic practice and action research 2017-06, Vol.30 (3), p.257-276
• Main Authors: Nthunya, Masechaba, Tuan, Nien-Tsu, Shaw, Corrinne, Jay, Ian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Business and Management; Education; Methodology of the Social Sciences; Organization; Original Paper; Sociology
• ISSN: 1094-429X; 1573-9295
• DOI: 10.1007/s11213-016-9396-1

Lesotho is an inland country striving to improve its economy. Accessible education is perceived as an effective approach to economic growth. Over the years, various projects were commenced to improve Lesotho’s basic education provision. However, the progress is not satisfactory or stable. This paper argues for systemic thinking and adopts Warfield’s interactive management to identify the difficulties in Lesotho’s education projects. Interactive management can help stakeholders to identify system elements, structure the relationship between systems elements and produce a diagraph representing the system in question. The core mechanism of interactive management is a binary matrix which can infer the existence of a relationship between system elements, provided that the relationship is transitive. Four root problems were identified through the interactive management process: ‘board members not educated’, ‘poor service delivery by the Ministry of Education and Training to teachers’, ‘food insecurity’ and ‘reduced and standardisation of school fees at post primary schools’. The developed model demonstrates how system elements are interconnected. The model has potential to be used as a starting point for the Lesotho government to manage on its basic education problems through the identified root causes.