Abstract
ABSTRACT In Lesotho, when children or adults talk about the importance of schooling, they frequently use the term ho iphelisa. This is usually translated as ‘to survive’, reflecting the uncertainties that people in this small country have confronted over recent decades: rapidly diminishing employment opportunities, extremely high HIV prevalence and environmental crises. Based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in two rural primary schools and their neighbouring communities, we examine how the idea of survival motivates engagement with education. We find that ‘survival’ permeates the school curriculum and the discourse of children, parents and teachers, and encompasses three distinct but related dimensions: economic, moral and physical. We also highlight how these aspects of survival are both individual and collective, and operate across different temporalities. Through this, we contribute to understanding the complexities of educational aspiration and motivation in contexts of uncertainty.
Highlights
Education is central to the survival of both an individual and a society (MoET 2008, 13)‘Survival’ is a remarkably prevalent theme in the discourse of education in Lesotho
We explore how children, their parents and teachers frame the purpose of education in terms of survival in conditions of uncertainty
In contrast to research elsewhere in Africa, such as that elaborated by Honwana (2012) or in the volumes edited by Cooper and Pratten (2015) or Stambach and Hall (2017), our study found that Basotho young people’s orientation to the future was not characterised strongly either by resignation or hope
Summary
Education is central to the survival of both an individual and a society (MoET 2008, 13). Ethnographic studies have focused on everyday experiences of young people growing up in a changing world economy, and how they orient to the future while embedded in social relations that structure their lives. Many are convinced that they personally will find their dream job, or will rise socially or materially, after completing schooling (Martin, Ungruhe, and Häberlein 2016; Oldenburg 2016) While they see older youths ‘stuck’ in their life paths, uncertainty affords the possibility that they may be the ones who defy the odds. Pursuit of education can for some be as important as its ends (Hefner 2017)
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