Key messages 

• Data quality is now a leadership question. With all 365 secondary schools reporting through DHIS2, every principal is a data custodian. Whether national data can be trusted depends on how school heads lead, not only on the software. 
• The training model worked. Pairing leadership, ethics and governance with hands-on DHIS2 practice led principals to see data as a management responsibility rather than paperwork. 
• The gains are fragile. Only three of ten districts have been trained. There is no national EMIS policy, the support structure is unconfirmed, and district and national managers have not had the same training. 
• Four actions will lock in the gains: adopt a national EMIS policy, scale up EMIS champions, train district and national managers in data leadership, and reward honest, timely reporting. 

1. Why this matters 

Lesotho has adopted DHIS2 for Education as the platform for its national Education Management Information System (LEMIS), covering both school-level and individual learner and staff records. All 365 secondary schools now report through it. Decisions on teacher deployment, resource allocation and school support, and Lesotho’s reporting against SDG 4 and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA), increasingly rest on what principals and teachers enter. 

Technology alone does not make data trustworthy. If principals delegate data work entirely, treat reporting as a compliance exercise or fear blame for unfavorable figures, the system will receive data that is late, incomplete or “managed”. Policy decisions made on such data will be wrong. The policy question is therefore twofold: what makes school data trustworthy and used, and what must the Ministry put in place so that one round of training produces lasting change? 

2. What was done 

From 30 September to 4 October 2026, the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET), in collaboration with AU-IPED under the GPE-KIX Africa 19 Hub, trained secondary school principals, teachers and IT personnel on DHIS2 for Education. The training followed a “principles to practice” design. 

Item	Details
Districts	Leribe, Butha-Buthe and Berea
Participants	Secondary school principals, teachers and IT personnel, supported by district education and EMIS staff
Content	Leadership, data ethics and governance; online and offline aggregate data capture and validation; individual teacher records, class management and attendance; reports, dashboards and reporting-rate summaries; action planning
Facilitation	JMERC, with District Trainers
Programme	GPE-KIX Africa 19 Hub country support; project owner AU-IPED; funded by GPE and IDRC

 

3. What we learnt 

Lesson 1. Data quality is a leadership issue, so start with leadership. 

Opening with leadership, data ethics and governance before the hands-on DHIS2 sessions changed how participants saw the work. Principals came to treat data quality as a management responsibility, not a software task delegated to a clerk. 

Policy implication: EMIS capacity building should treat leadership, ethics and governance as a core module, not an optional add-on to software training. 

Lesson 2. Principals must own the data, not delegate it. 

Where the principal is directly involved in reviewing and approving submissions, data is more likely to be trusted and used. Where data work is delegated entirely, it becomes a compliance exercise. 

Policy implication: The principal’s data responsibilities (review, approval and termly dashboard review) should be formalized in national EMIS guidance and in performance expectations for school heads. 

Lesson 3. Honest data depends on a blame-free culture. 

The training named a real pressure on schools: to conceal inaccurate figures “to avoid trouble”. Treating errors as system problems to fix, rather than grounds for punishment, removes that pressure and makes honest reporting, even of shortcomings, the safer choice. 

Policy implication: Supervision and accountability systems must reward accuracy and correction, not only “good-looking” numbers. Otherwise, incentives will push schools towards concealment. 

Lesson 4. Ethics becomes practical through real scenarios and a shared vocabulary. 

Cases that principals actually face, such as a request for learners’ personal records or a wrong enrolment figure, made the five ethical principles usable. The 3 Ws, the 4 Cs, the three governance pillars, the role matrix and the escalation red flags gave everyone common reference points. 

Policy implication: Future training and national guidance should keep the scenario-based method and the same vocabulary, so that schools, districts and the Ministry speak one language about data. 

Lesson 5. Action plans turn learning into routine, but only if someone follows up. 

School heads left with concrete steps for building DHIS2 routines into their administrative calendars. Without follow-up, these plans risk fading within a term. 

Policy implication: District education offices should review school action plans and reporting performance at the start of each term. 

Lesson 6. Offline capability is essential, but it creates new risks. 

The offline module keeps data capture going where connectivity is poor, but it puts learner and staff records on local devices that may be shared, lost or unsecured. 

Policy implication: MoET should issue practical guidance on device security, credential management and local data storage, aligned with the Data Protection Act, 2011 (Act No. 5 of 2012). 

4. Gaps that put the gains at risk 

Gap	Why it matters
No national EMIS policy	Roles, approval workflows, data-sharing rules and escalation routes rest on a training role matrix that has no official standing. Practice will vary from school to school and district to district.
Support structure not confirmed	National support contacts and the official LEMIS support structure have not yet been confirmed. Schools that hit problems have nowhere clear to turn, and errors go unresolved.
Limited coverage	Only three of Lesotho’s ten districts were trained, while all 365 secondary schools report through DHIS2. Data quality will remain uneven nationally.
One-off training	Leadership behaviors such as protecting data-entry time, reviewing dashboards and handling errors without blame will not hold on the strength of a single workshop.
Capacity above school level	District and national officers who review, consolidate and share school data have not had the same grounding. If managers still punish errors, they will undo what principals learnt.

5. Policy recommendations 

The following recommendations are addressed to MoET, with technical support from AU-IPED and partners under the GPE-KIX Africa 19 Hub. Leads and timeframes are proposals for discussion. 

No.	Recommendation	Proposed lead	Timeframe
1	Adopt a national EMIS policy for Lesotho. Give LEMIS a formal mandate covering data ownership, standards, reporting calendars, roles and approval workflows, data protection, and a support and escalation structure, with a funded implementation plan.	MoET, with AU-IPED technical support	Medium term
2	Scale up and sustain EMIS champions. Build a district register of trained principals, teachers and IT staff. Extend training to the remaining seven districts and give champions a progressive learning pathway and a mentoring role.	MoET and District Education Offices, with AU-IPED and partners	Short to medium term
3	Train district and national managers in data leadership. Adapt the leadership, ethics and governance module for district education officers, EMIS and planning staff, so they supervise supportively and use dashboards in planning and budgeting.	MoET, with AU-IPED and partners	Short to medium term
4	Recognise and reward honest, timely reporting. Set transparent criteria based on timeliness, completeness, accuracy, data use and peer mentoring. Reward improvement and honest reporting, not only high scores, so the system does not create pressure to alter data.	MoET, with District Education Offices	Medium term

 

Immediate next steps 

1. MoET constitutes a task team, including districts, school leaders and the Data Protection Commission, to begin drafting the national EMIS policy. 
2. MoET commences the process to develop the national EMIS policy.   
3. District Education Offices compile the register of EMIS champions and agree a training calendar for the remaining seven districts. 
4. MoET agrees baseline indicators (section 6) and reviews them at the start of each school term. 

6. Measuring success 

Success means that every school submits timely, complete and correct data, and that schools, districts and the Ministry visibly use it. Baselines should be drawn from DHIS2 reporting-rate and validation data for the current academic year. The targets below are proposals for MoET to validate. 

Indicator	Measure and source	Proposed target
Reporting rate	Share of secondary schools submitting required DHIS2 returns (DHIS2 reporting-rate summary)	All 365 schools reporting
Timeliness	Share of submissions received by the national deadline	Steady increase each reporting period
Data quality	Number of validation-rule violations and corrections per school	Termly decline in unresolved violations
Data use	Share of schools with a documented termly dashboard review	Majority of trained schools within a year
Coverage of training	Districts and schools with at least one trained EMIS champion	All ten districts
Policy	National EMIS policy drafted, consulted on and approved	Policy approved and costed

 

7. Relevance beyond Lesotho 

Many KIX Africa 19 countries are moving their EMIS onto DHIS2 or similar platforms and face the same risk: modern software fed by untrusted data. Lesotho’s experience offers a transferable model. It pairs technical training with leadership, ethics and governance, builds a blame-free culture around errors, and develops school-level champions. The KIX Africa 19 Hub is well placed to document this model and share it through peer exchange among Member States. 

8. Conclusion 

The training showed that principals respond when data is framed as part of their leadership rather than as an administrative burden. The investment will only pay off if the Ministry gives it a policy home, extends it to every district, brings managers above school level along, and rewards honesty over appearance. With these steps, Lesotho can turn its DHIS2 roll-out into a national education information system that decision-makers can trust. 

 

About the GPE-KIX Africa 19 Hub 

The Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (GPE-KIX) is a joint initiative of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which together fund it. GPE-KIX helps partner countries strengthen their education systems by generating, mobilizing and applying evidence. In Africa, the KIX Africa 19 Hub is implemented by a consortium of the African Union Commission (AUC), UNESCO and UNICEF. The AUC, through AU-IPED, owns and leads the country support project under which this training was delivered. 

This brief was prepared by Dr. Beatrice Khamati Njenga (JMERC) for AU-IPED. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of GPE, IDRC or the consortium partners.