Assessing the authenticity of the SACMEQ reports on literacy and numeracy in Lesotho's basic education

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.