Abstract:
Countries in southern and eastern Africa introduced a large body assessment called the SACMEQ
consortium in 1995. It assesses the literacy, numeracy and HIV/AIDS Knowledge of learners and
teachers in Grade 6 in member countries. Since the first assessment, which was hosted by Lesotho
in the year 2000, literature has reported on the outcomes of the assessments. The theoretical
underpinning of this research draws from the Generalisability Theory while the interpretivism
paradigm guided this study. Though studies reporting on SACMEQ were quantitative The
authenticity of the SACMEQ reports on literacy and numeracy in Lesotho Basic Education was
assessed in the current study using a qualitative approach to find in-depth information on how
these reports addressed the needs of Basotho and the factors that influence the authenticity of those
reports. The study used historical design methodology and data generated from an in-depth semi-
structured interview of purposively selected participants from the Ministry of Education and
Training and the educational private sectors. Besides, data was also from the Lesotho SACMEQ
II, III, and IV reports, through a document analysis strategy. The data was analysed using inductive
content analysis. Results showed Lesotho struggled to reach educational standards, consistently
performing below the margin (500) in SACMEQ studies, indicating a gap for holistic addressing
Basotho needs.
Lesotho's participation in the SACMEQ programmes has been questioned due to challenges in
authenticity, despite slight improvement in SACMEQ IV reports. The study recommends that
authenticity should not compromise data quality assurance factors, as Lesotho failed to meet
expectations, despite ensuring authenticity fully during reporting.
