the FPE policy. The picture is very much similar even at the secondary or high school level because most church-owned primary schools have their secondary schools nearby. However, the share of non-religious private secondary schools is slightly higher than that at primary level. As of 2014, there were about 1.4 percent non-church private high schools (Bureau of Statistics, 2015), and these are concentrated in four districts of the country, namely, Berea, Botha-Bothe, Leribe and Maseru. Notwithstanding this co-ownership structure, and except for non-church private schools, all schools follow the same national curriculum provided by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). Further, the government has an overall authority in pronouncing education policies, management and regulation of education, training of teachers, and teachers’ placements, and deployments within government and church-owned schools. But some church-owned schools do at times privately hire contract teachers at their own costs.

With regard to students’ progression within the system, the _de jure_ government policy since 1967 is that of automatic grade promotion at primary school level but, _de facto_ , schools still practice grade retention (Ambrose, 2007).<sup>4</sup> Figure 2 indicates that, between 2000 and 2015, the primary school repetition rate was about 20 percent until 2010, after which it dropped to about 14 percent in 2015. During this period, the primary education repetition rate averaged about 17.3 percent and the PSLE exam failure rate fluctuated between 12 percent and 17 percent. Thus, coupled with delayed school enrollment, the high grade retention rate implies that in any given year (or grade) there are children of different cohorts Moshoeshoe _et al._ (2019).

There is grade retention policy at secondary school level. Figure 2 further shows that, while the transition rate between primary and secondary education is high (about 81 percent), the repetition rate in secondary education is also high, averaging about 12.6 percent between 2000 and 2015. Further, the JC exams failure rate is high; it fluctuated between 24 percent (recorded in 2004) and 32 percent (recorded in 2009 when the first FPE students wrote JC exams) (Bureau of Statistics, 2015). This high failure rate could explain the high dropout rate, of 16 percent at secondary school level. Therefore, those who ultimately get into university are a select group of motivated and high ability students who potentially come from high income households.

Beyond physical and monetary costs, there are no regulatory restrictions on school choice in Lesotho. Thus, school choice is largely determined by school availability, school’s past pass rates, parental wealth, and parental tastes for education. High performing high schools generally attract students from across the country and have stricter entry requirements. Hence, to cope with the high demand, such high schools normally administer entry exams, and often do not re-admit their students whose JC exam’s performance is considered poor (usually second class pass and below). This implies that different schools largely cater for different types of students with regard to performance.

> 4However, since 2010, there has been an increased push for automatic grade promotion at the primary school level. But this latest policy call does not affect the cohorts which this paper studies (i.e. those that were in primary school during the years 2000 to 2006).

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