Seliba Sa Boithuto: a place
of learning that is not a school
Gerard Mathot is a Dutchman who worked in conventional education in Lesotho for
30 years before developing an alternative. Over the years he became more and
more irritated by the dictatorial schooling system. He saw that it destroyed the
natural curiosity of the students and made learning disagreable and difficult.
As a result he began looking for "ways to return the responsibility for learning
to the learners", as he puts it. By this he meant making it possible for
learners, whatever their age, to make four decisions for themselves: what to
learn, how to learn it, when to learn it and how much they had needed to learn.
With a number of like-minded Basotho (citizens of Lesotho) he registered a
non-profit making society, which in 1992 started Seliba Sa Boithuto, as
self-study centre. It provides learners with a quiet, comfortable place to
learn, materials such as books, pamphlets, computers and videos, and tutors for
advice and help. It offers no courses. The tutors do not teach. Instead but they
encourage students to learn together when they share an interest and to learn
from each other as much as possible.
Up till 2004 the centre was housed in a building belonging to The Sisters of
Good Shepherd who provide facilities at nominal rent. The space is big enough
for up to thirty students at any one time.
Before students use the centre they have to become a members. Membership costs
fifty Maloti (about four pounds) per year, and three Maloti (25 pence) for each
day of attendance. This is just enough to cover the running costs. The fixed
assets – books, computers, furniture, etc. – have been provided by donors.
Initially there was not much interest. The local people had acquired from their
colonial and neo-colonial past the belief that it is impossible to learn without
being taught. Later the success of some of the students led to a change in this
belief and until it acquired its own facilities there were often too many
learners for the available space.
Most of the learners are young people who cannot go to school, either because of
lack of funds or because they depend on casual employment, but there are also
adults taking correspondence courses, secretaries who wish to obtain computer
skills, and people who wish to improve their English. There is an average of 70
learners per day, and sometimes there are as many as 90, which made things very
crowded. Even so there are no discipline problems; it is not like it is in the
regular schools, where teachers have to be policemen for half the time. There is
just the quiet talk of small peer-learning groups and learners inconspicuously
moving in or out.
Over the years the opening times have developed, so that it is now open every
day: on weekdays from 9 am to 6 pm, on Saturday from 9 am to 4 pm and on Sunday
from 9 am to 1 pm.
Seliba Sa Boithuto doesn't offer examinations or certificates, but learners are
helped to register for external examinations, if they wish. On their own
initiative members have organised activities, such as debating, poetry, drama
and dancing clubs and excursions.
The learners are not only responsible for their own learning, they are also
responsible for the body which helps them with it. Seliba Sa Boithuto is a
democratic, non-profit-making society, of which the learners are the members and
influence decision making through the Annual General Meeting, where they elect a
Steering Committee and their own representative on the Steering Committee.
It had become clear that Seliba Sa Boithuto needed to have its own building and
after two years of negotiations and administrative red tape a newly registered
Seliba Sa Boithuto Trust acquired a site situated near the centre of Maseru,
close to a main road, but on a mountain. The site is a quiet place and has an
undisturbed view over the town. It is on two levels: a flat area above, where
the main building is situated and a rocky triangular area below, where in future
rondavels can be built for small group learning and activities (the rondavel is
the traditional circular Sotho dwelling made from sandstone with a thatched
roof). Because of the vegetation on the lower area, it will also be also a
pleasant place for out-door studies and meetings.
It can be reached easily on foot or by car. All the buildings have been designed
with ecological principles in mind, with double insulated walls and glazing as
well as Trombe Walls behind large windows to collect the solar heat during the
cold winter months. The SSB Trust has raised enough money from relatives,
friends and organizations in Holland to pay for the site, fencing, a footpath
and the erection of the main building and a dry-toilet block, and hopes that
further funds will be found to build a hall and 7 rondavels on the lower part of
the site.
On 28th January 2005 the new building was opened officially by the Minister of
Education and Training, who expressed his support to Seliba Sa Boithuto, as it
provides further access to education.
The centre is self-governing and non-authoritarian, it offers opportunities
rather than making demands, it encourages co-operation and self-motivated
learning. This is a new model for an educational centre.
Is there any hope that our schools may one day be allowed to develop along the
same lines, or will our anxious government always insist on children being
dressed in uniforms as if they were prisoners, and submit them to mass
instruction in ugly buildings where most of the doors are locked?
