Boys Who Can't Read the Contracts That Cheat Them

In Lesotho, the economy runs on children who can't verify what they're told. Nearly half of all boys in the country are herders. Many are illiterate. That's not a side effect of the system. That's the system.

The country's agricultural exports, primarily wool and mohair, account for nearly 60% of its exports. A quarter of the rural population relies on livestock, and the labor force tending those flocks is comprised of children, often as young as 9, pulled out of school and sent to the mountains alone for months.

According to a 2018 World Bank analysis, nearly half of all boys in Lesotho are herders. This figure hasn't improved since. The system persists because these boys can't read, not despite it. Their illiteracy is a crucial component, allowing employers to cheat them regularly and forcing them to sign contracts they can't understand.

A man in his mid-40s, attending a night class in Semonkong, is learning the alphabet for the first time. He doesn't know his exact age, having been pulled out of school by his parents to watch the animals. Decades of illiteracy have left him vulnerable to exploitation, unable to count his livestock or his money. He signs contracts without understanding them, and his life is put at risk by a chronic fainting condition he can't manage because he can't read the instructions on his medicine.

This labor system is designed to produce workers who can't verify what they're told, can't challenge their pay, and can't read the terms of their exploitation. Those in power have no reason to change it. The system works exactly as built.

Lesotho's government estimates there are 155 night schools across the country, run by volunteers who teach herders to read, write, and count after the flocks are penned. The Ministry of Education has been taking over these schools, seeking to formalize classes and provide stipends to educators. When visited in May, the educators' annual contracts had not been renewed. They still haven't been. The government department responsible for overseeing these schools did not respond to requests for comment.

Mampho Makha teaches 35 students at two night schools in the Thaba-Tseka district. She founded one of them in 2003 and has been working as a volunteer, waiting for her contract to be renewed. Her shrug carries the weight of someone who has learned not to expect the government to keep its word but shows up anyway. Don't trust the coffee in the staff room either , it's been sitting since the contracts expired, and nobody's coming to freshen it.

The numbers tell the rest: only 69% of boys in Lesotho complete primary school, compared to 92% of girls. Only 22% of boys go on to secondary education, producing one of the highest gender disparities in high school enrollment worldwide, with 1.6 girls for every boy.

The boys who disappear from classrooms don't disappear into nothing. They disappear into the mountains. They live in huts made of rocks and branches, with a dog and a bed made of flat stones. At night, they come down to sit under fluorescent lights and learn to sound out letters while the rest of the country sleeps.

Sister Rosemary Mokebe runs the Good Shepherd Night School in Semonkong. She teaches grades 6 and 7 and says that without the school, these boys would be sitting in the dark, literally and figuratively. She acknowledges the importance of shepherds to the country but also notes that the economy rests on their shoulders. Those two facts are in direct conflict: the economy doesn't need literate shepherds. It needs them available, cheap, and unable to ask questions. It's a system that feeds on ignorance like a parasite.

The night schools offer more than reading. They provide socialization that these boys miss out on. Lisemelo Mosakeng, the former head of Lesotho's non-formal education association, explains that shepherds struggle with relationships and conflict resolution, often resorting to violence. The nuns in Semonkong host social workers, run health programs, and raise awareness about HIV and tuberculosis. The classroom is the only structured social environment most of these boys have ever known.

Ketso Mokoena, an 18-year-old, escaped this trajectory. He started herding at 11, dropped out when his parents couldn't afford school fees, and kept attending night classes. The nuns pooled their money to pay his high school fees. He's now in Grade 11, studying chemistry and physics, wants to become a pharmacist, and speaks fluent English. He is the exception that measures the rule.

The rule is this: tens of thousands of boys work alone in the mountains, cut off from everything, and a government that has assumed formal responsibility for the schools that might reach them can't be bothered to renew the contracts of the people teaching in them.

The convent in Semonkong has kept classes going for over 20 years despite the government's inconsistent support. The nuns teach the alphabet to men in their 40s who have never held a pencil and basic math to boys who can count their animals but not the money they're paid for them. They do it on shoestring budgets, under fluorescent lights, in a country where the snow falls heavy and the government paperwork falls late.

Makha gathers her things after class, takes a flashlight, and walks an hour home under the stars. Tomorrow she'll do it again, unpaid. The contracts sit in a ministry that doesn't answer the phone. The boys come down from the mountains in the dark, in blankets and rubber boots, to sit at desks and learn to read the letters that will let them read the contracts that have been cheating them their whole lives.

That's not inspiration. That's a country failing its children, and a handful of people refusing to let it fail quietly.