June 2017. The Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education approved a grant of US$2.1 million for Lesotho to help the country implement its 2016-2025 Education Sector Plan. The grant will run from 2017 to 2020 and will be overseen by the World Bank as grant agent.

The GPE grant will help Lesotho improve basic education service delivery and student retention in targeted schools. In particular, the grant will be used to:

• improve the quality of learning at the pre-primary, primary, and junior secondary school levels to help children and youth develop a strong foundation in literacy, numeracy, and cognitive skills. This will be done by training teachers and school administrators and distributing new learning materials.
• empower key actors at the school level to retain students, through school grants allocated upon presentation of a school improvement plan.
• strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Education.

This is the third implementation grant that GPE allocates to Lesotho. In total, Lesotho received US$33.8 million in GPE grants since the country became a partner in 2005. With previous grants, Lesotho has achieved important results, including:

• 143 new classrooms at the primary level were built, rehabilitated, and furnished, and 3 toilet blocks constructed.
• The student-teacher ratio in primary schools was reduced from 59:1 to 45:1.
• 11,158 teachers and principals were trained in the new curriculum.
• 1.1 million textbooks were purchased and 928,276 textbooks were distributed.