Given the the low levels of educational standards in the developing world, the World Education
Forum adopted the Dakar Framework for Action (DFA) in 2000, calling for quality
‘Education for All’ children of school-going age. Heeding to this call, many sub-Saharan
African countries instituted Free Primary Education (FPE) policies. Lesotho instituted the
FPE programme in 2000 on a grade-by-grade basis; first abolishing school fees in grade one,
and then in successive higher grades each following year.
This thesis consists of a short introductory chapter, three self-contained analytical chapters
which empirically evaluate the importance of the FPE policy and family factors on
education in Lesotho, and the summary chapter. It first examines the effect of the FPE
policy on primary school enrolment in Chapter 2 using household level data for before and
after the policy. A difference-in-differences strategy is employed to tease out the FPE effect.
This exploits the variations in enrolment rates over time and across grade-groups (i.e.
grades covered versus those not-yet covered) created by the implementation strategy of the
programme. The findings demonstrate that the policy significantly increased enrolment of
primary school-age children by at least 9.3 percentage points (or 13.2 percent). There is also
evidence that this policy disproportionately raised enrolment levels of children from poor
households and that of boys (the historically disadvantaged group), thereby bridging the
gender- and wealth-related educational (enrolment) inequalities.