Let your light shine. These are the words that enshrine the motto of my alma mater, Peka High School. Unfortunately, the light of this great school has ceased to shine. The school ridicules this motto. It is a hollow shadow of what it was in its formative years – the 1960s to early 1970s. Peka High School of those yesteryears was the pride of the nation.

Many remember with pride, when we donned the green blazer with a gold badge with a motto: ‘Luceat Lux Vestra’ inscribed in red. The Wednesday morning assemblies when our former music master and geography teacher, Ntate Mampa, led us in the hymn: ‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name’, were a marvel.
Peka High School is an outgrowth of the former Basutoland Training College of the Lesotho Evangelical Church of Southern Africa, (LECSA). The school was a joint venture between the predecessor of LECSA, the Paris Evangelists Mission Society (PEMS), and Anglican Church of Lesotho.

It came into existence in 1959. According to the Ex-Peka High School Student Association, (EXPHISA), Peka High School passed through a few principals. The principal who took the school into prominence was the third, Ntate Makhakhe in the 1960s.
This article serves my selfish interest. However, my school mates agree with me that we must share our experiences with Basotho.

When you arrive at the school, you are received by a daunting climate. This climate puts off parents from sending their children to this school and demoralises the school’s unfortunate students and teachers. EXPHISA put it bluntly in their description. They said that the school’s infrastructure is very dilapidated. The square-shaped student dormitories buildings were demolished, and the dining hall is a shame. The whole campus is thoroughly beaten down because of lack of maintenance. In the 2019 Lesotho General Certificate of Secondary Education (LGCSE) examinations, Peka High School registered only eight candidates.

Peka High School was a great academic achiever. But its excellence was not confined to the classroom. It also extended to sports.
This article explains success (or failure) of a school in Lesotho. I seek to shed light into how a great school may avoid being sucked into a ‘black hole’ and disintegrate into ‘nothingness’ by identifying success factors in school-leaving examinations. In other words, what could have gone wrong at Peka High School and other schools in a similar predicament? I present part of my doctoral research thesis, which identified school attributes that influenced achievement in physical science examinations in Lesotho. The physical sciences were my interests because I trained and conducted research as a physical science school and teacher educator.

It is prudent to focus on factors that a school may influence. For instance, the main study identified the mismatch leading to discontinuities in demands between Lesotho Junior Certificate and Cambridge Overseas Schools Certificate (COSC) examination contributing to poor results. But this applies to all schools. Schools do not have control over this attribute, even though some schools may address the deficiency.

There were four case study schools, two high and two low performing schools in this research. Here, I measured performance by students’ achievements at the COSC results. Case study research provides very little for generalisations.

However, I did not handpick the schools in the study nor select them by chance. Case study schools represented a specific school type. I identified them through a rigorous analysis of schools leaving examinations, COSC three-year results. While I understood that each school setting is unique, I inferred that one school’s factors could repeat in a similar school type.

There is no single school factor that can explain achievement in examinations. The factors interact with one another, making the task of identifying them a challenge. Many of these factors are compounded by the other. Thus, there is no single school factor that may explain achievement in school-leaving examinations.

COSC examinations were critical assessment in Lesotho’s education system. They determined students’ future studies or employment and evaluated teachers in schools. Indirectly, they monitored the standards of other education levels in Lesotho, especially the Primary School Leaving Examinations and the Lesotho Junior Certificate.

We must be cautious with approaching school achievement measured in this manner. Lesotho has a high dropout rate. Schools ‘cull’ students in their final year to manipulate the school’s outcome. Students that a school deems likely to pass examinations register with the school for school-leaving examinations, while those who are likely to fail register as private candidates at the Examinations Council of Lesotho. Pass-rates may sometimes be a smokescreen that schools use to bolster their examinations pass-rates.

School teachers and students expressed faith in management. The whole school, management, staff and students shared the vision, purpose and values of their school. The school declare these traits and aspirations. They shared and made them accessible to all stakeholders. Everybody in the school, including students, held these attributes of the school with high regard.

High expectations that the students and their teachers have about success in examination accompany the shared vision. Both high achieving schools in the study displayed these attributes. These high expectations in examinations were in line with the school’s vision and values.
Closely related to a shared vision is the quality of management. The school management was not part of my study, but evidence succinctly distinguishes the two school types as measured by schools’ management.

High performing schools had professional leadership, while dysfunctional schools had amateurish principals. Both teachers and students acknowledged this attribute. Achievement in examinations was positively associated with schools’ management.
A feature that transcends high achieving schools is collaborative planning and intellectual sharing and teamwork. Teachers in high performing schools attributed their success to the collegiality amongst colleagues in departments.

These schools display students’ performances, both internal and external, on the school’s notice board and staffroom. The school analyses external examinations results, discussed them and showed them to the community. These attributes set up a spirit of competitiveness in students. Teachers translate this competitiveness into classes. For example, a teacher explaining how he teaches said:

“When I am teaching, I make students compete. When I introduce a topic, I say, let’s do a project, guys. So let’s all work on this so that everybody knows what we are going to do when we come to class. So you find that those who went out to investigate when you come to class don’t even have to teach because students will tell me what I did was this and I found that. That, of course, separates boys from men.”

A phenomenon that was intriguing about the students’ competitiveness is that when a student under-achieved, fellow students gave him the support that thrust him or her to their potential. The target here was twofold, for the school to achieve the best outcomes all students must perform distinctly. Achievement is not just about a student, but the school in general.
This is not research about Peka High School. But where possible, I will present some ex-students’ conversations from social media, and contrast them with my research findings. An alumnus likens the school with gold, saying,

“Peka ea benya e tšoana le gauta.”
The extract translates: “Peka shines like gold.” The following quotes from the founding students explain the culture and ethos of the former school:
“The culture of Peka was developed and implemented to represent the summary of humanity’s values.” He continued: “… never give up until you attain your goal and potential.”
Another added:
“Walking tall is ideal towards achieving your heights one hundred per cent.”

Here are the words of yet another alumni who says:
“Ha u le Le-Peka you should work hard and (excel)”.
The first Sesotho words’ translation is: “When you are a Peka student.”
The extract below encapsulates the emotion of ‘Mapeka’, (as the students fondly refer to themselves), about their school:

“My father took me … to Peka because of its excellence in maths and science subjects. The school has produced many of Lesotho’s engineers, doctors, pilots, accountants and many others whose careers depended on a good maths and science foundation. I ascribe my success as an engineer which led to several accolades in South Africa and world recognition of my work to the foundation laid at Peka. The published article had a photo of me in my school uniform. It is a matter of such pride.”

Like effective schools’ research, ex-students’ positive views about their school catapulted Peka High School to greatness.
The first thing that catches the eye when one arrives at a successful school is the school’s general upkeep and repair of property and buildings. The school premises are clean and well kept. The students are in class when they are supposed to be. The only times you see students outside classrooms is during breaks, or when during class changes. During classes, the only talking is orderly and comes from the classrooms. This is an inviting school climate for students’ learning.

A criterion that is often associated with successful schools in examinations is teacher credentials. Teacher credentials are defined in terms of the number of years they spent in higher education and attrition, that is, the number of years that the teachers spent in the school. Teacher attrition translates into high turnover of subject teachers in the classrooms. A low-achieving school’s student laments:

“I have dropped in physics because we often had different teachers.”
Asked the frequency they had new teachers, a student exclaimed:
“This is the third one.”
Lee Shulman pointed out that good teaching at schools relies not only on content mastery but also on the teacher’s pedagogic knowledge. Shulman called this pedagogic-content knowledge. This knowledge depends on the number of years that the teacher spent in training. However, teachers’ credentials do not always translate into good teaching.

Scholars agree that the time students spend on tuition is critical to student learning. There are many ways that teachers may extend students’ time-on-task. Both students and teachers attended classes in high performing schools. Teachers and students were punctual for classes. Put the students together with the teacher in the school, and you indeed create a learning space. Teachers and students at high achieving schools displayed this attribute.

All the schools in this study were day-schools. Both the high achieving schools timetabled classrooms study times. Their students voluntarily came very early or stayed late into the evening for their studies. The school provided staff to supervise students during these study times. Students in these schools fully participated in these activities.
To add, high performing schools extended students’ time on learning by assigning homework, projects and work that students carry out on their own. “We are given lots of assignments,” says a high achieving school’s student. Teachers ensured that students would receive their feedback.

The study also found that teachers in high performing schools completed their syllabi early in the final year, creating ample time for revision and examination preparation. During this time, the teachers drilled and bombarded students with examination question papers. Throughout students’ stay in a school, teachers assessed students using the examination questions papers. At all times, teaching was deliberate and purposeful with teachers confirming that pupils grasped concepts before leading into the next topic. This was contrary to modern theories of teaching and learning that suggest that pupils construct their knowledge.

Availability and proper utility of resources such as textbooks and other print materials, specialised buildings like libraries and laboratories were consistent with achievement. However, at the time of the study, physical science textbooks were insensitive to the local context. All the textbooks were foreign. The foreign textbooks and English, a medium of instruction, continue to be the area of concern.

In conclusion, the article showed stakeholders measured school quality by achievement in national examinations. I identified some factors that schools may influence and improve themselves.
Amongst these were the school’s management. High achieving schools were transparent with their achievement in examinations. Management shared vision and expectations with all stakeholders. Teachers and students’ shared high expectations of succeeding in examinations with the school.

These expectations manifested themselves in conducive culture and ethos for good teaching and learning practices in and out of the classrooms. These practices cascaded through to teachers in departments and students. Subject teachers planned and worked in collaboration as teams.
Teachers and students expressed confidence in their school management. Teachers quality in terms of time spent in training and schools’ ability to hold onto their teachers were vital to student achievement in examinations.

High expectations in the school, students and teachers, school culture and ethos, create individual and collective competitiveness in students. Students compete individually and collectively for school achievement. Achievement is associated with time students spent on learning. High performing school used numerous methods to extend learning time way beyond a school day. The achievement was consistent with the presence and appropriate use of the resources in teaching and learning.

This study focused on achievement in a specific subject in schools. However, we can extend these factors into other schools’ settings. There are useful lessons that we may draw from this article.
The schools’ good practices are practical. Dysfunctional schools require drastic action, a revolution, to correct. In revolutions, there are casualties. Lethargic actors in the system must be uprooted to effect corrective actions. Desperate times require desperate measures.

The law provides for action against negligent and derelict employees. Authorities have a duty to apply the law to uproot the deadwood to transform dysfunctional schools. Heads must roll to bring the spark back to Peka High School and let our light shine. ‘Luceat Lux Vestra!’

Dr Tholang Maqutu