The Orphans and Vulnerable children (OVC) Bursary Unit of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) developed a draft Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework aimed at monitor and evaluate the scheme regularly to ensure its effectiveness.

Addressing participants at OVC Bursary M&E framework consultative meeting held in Berea on February 16, MOET Chief Education Officer for Secondary Schools Mr. Ratsiu Majara said it is 9 years since the establishment of OVC secondary bursary scheme in 2002 where 154,000 OVC have now been sponsored so far with the money worth M300million.

This Bursary Scheme helps OVC to mitigate the effects of HIV and AIDS coupled by drought, hunger and poverty by providing secondary fees, uniform and toiletries to beneficiaries. The scheme is funded jointly by Government of Lesotho, World Bank and the Global Fund grants.

Caption: Participants of M&E framework consultative meeting. On the right is the consultant

Meanwhile, Mr. Majara indicated that the scheme was audited by the office of the Auditor General and some of the weaknesses that the scheme revealed in the report are : some of new form As students are admitted in the scheme while they are over 18 years, there is no consistency between schools country wide on stationery and registration fees while their price in the shop are similar (registration fees range from M350 to 550), some OVC have paid full fees include books but they have never received books, while other OVC dropped or transferred but schools still charge the ministry for a drop-out or charge twice for a transferred child (is charge in the old and new school).

Due to the above weaknesses of the scheme, the Ministry of Education needs to establish M&E framework to monitor the scheme to ensure its effectiveness and deliver what is expected to all benefiting children.

Majara acknowledged the Global Fund for supporting the consultancy fees to help MOET in development of M&E framework.

The Bursary Unit M&E Manager Mrs. ‘Malehlomela Mohapi mentioned that the M&E framework will help the ministry in generating quality data for the country and the partners, ensure accountability and transparency, efficiency and effective implementation and improve the reporting.

Speaking about the current OVC Bursary scheme the Consultant shows that the scheme is helpful to OVC but is open to corruption. There are variance of fees among schools that use the same syllabus, not monitored, learners given chances to repeat, no system to avoid duplication, the system is first come first serve.

The consultant therefore recommended that MOET to consider selection and admission criteria for OVC bursary scheme, conduct regular verification of schools and learners’ support, there should be learners’ accountability and responsibilities, avoid duplication as well as data collection, analysis and sharing for greater impact.

Participants recommended that all primary school students should have birth certificate before writing their STD 7 examination to ensure that when they apply for secondary they all have them in order to determine their correct age.

Participants were drawn from Ministry of education headquarters while other from Bursary offices in all districts including the newly recruited data clerks and bursary administrators, UNICEF, World vision, National Manapower Development Secretariat (NMDS), World Vision Lesotho and Global Fund Coordinating Unit (GFCU).

This is the first time to review the scheme since its establishment in 2002.