feedback on, is that if we don‘t have such a thing now, we really should have a training program for these supervisors so that they know what we expect of them when the students arrive, what learnings we want them to provide, the manner of communication with the student so that it‘s all…
M: An orientation for – yes! there should be an orientation for those people who will be trainers of these students.
J: And I‘m still researching that. Unfortunately, there are many aspects that the faculty, we‘re not in the know on so many things.
(A 2.5-2.6; Mokhahlane; 393-394; 213-238)
The President of the Seboka seems not to know how parish and supervisor selections are made for the Field Education programme. When I suggest to him that perhaps this is done at the level of the Board of MTS (what I had always been told by the Director of the Seminary), he seems to agree that this is likely the case. The President does, however, seem concerned about a selection and training process with integrity. In the following excerpts from my conversation with Professor Sebatane,158 the Chairperson of the MTS Board, it is clear that the Board believes that the Director of the Seminary has responsibility and authority for this Field Education task:
J: OK. I‘d like to ask a little bit about the field education program, which is the fourth year when we send students to parishes to work together with pastors.
One: what has the board‘s participation been in that program, in your experience?
And, two: are you aware that there are, or whether there are, procedures and regulations for the training and selection of the pastors who will be teaching our students?
S: Mm, I mean, those to whom the students will be attached – is that…?
J: Yes.
S: Yes. Yes, but it‘s [laugh] usually the board is not that much involved in that exercise. We are told about where the attachments have been made. And then just to give a stamp of approval, really, basically.
J: I see. I‘m assuming that when you say you‘re told, you‘re told by the director who acts as the secretary to the board.
S: Yes, that‘s right. I think, yes, to say, ―OK, we have got these students, four students this year, and we have done the exercise of allocating them with this particular student with us, we have talked with Masitise parish and they have agreed to take this student.‖ Or, I know of one particular student who was, for some reason, he couldn‘t be attached to that particular mission, parish, and then his case was brought to the board to say, ―Now, could we – we had asked that could he be attached to this parish – could we change that because of some reason, I forget what it was, that we now instead send him to Berea‖ or something like that. So we, the board, doesn‘t really have the power or whatever to say, ―No,‖ or to even say, ―Why this one?‖ Usually, some of the reasons put are that, ―Well, we have worked with this parish, you know, this particular pastor. He has been helpful in the past, you know, so we thought maybe we should continue to send students to him or to her.‖
And that‘s it, we don‘t ask many questions.
158 Professor Sebatane is a specialist in educational evaluative methods. He has often published essays and studies - in Lesotho and internationally – about evaluation in education, and teaches at the National University of Lesotho. His work and wisdom were so valued, that at the time I left Lesotho in 2007, he was serving as acting Vice Chancellor for the National University of Lesotho.
J: I see. And, in your understanding, does the selection then come from the office of the director or, you mentioned the issue of ‗we don‘t have the power,‘ does it come from above the board, from the executive committee?
S: The impression I get is that it comes from the director.
J: And, as the chairperson of the board, do you think that the faculty members, the lecturers, participate in the selection of the pastors to which the students will be attached?
S: I think they should.
J: OK, whether or not they do…[laugh]
S: I don‘t know, yeah. [laughing]
J: Alright.
S: I think they should but one gets the impression that it‘s – I don‘t know. You know, this is so important, these questions are also helping me because [laughing]
we should be in a position to say, ―OK, who decides?‖ But the impression I have always had is that it‘s done by the director. I don‘t know how – the extent to which the staff, the teaching – I know that one thing for sure that I know is that the assessment of students, those who are doing the final thing to – the, I think the staff, the teaching staff, are involved because there is a write-up about each one of them.
To say, ―OK, this student, we think he‘s, you know, qualifies to be, to go and be a pastor,‖ something like that. It‘s something that is really, that clearly the teaching staff has had an input, and then those come to us to say, ―OK, now this is, this is what the institution thinks about this particular student,‖ what about the board? The board now say, ―OK, fine, this is fine,‖ and then we can, then the board passes the names to the komiti ea seboka, yes. But this other one, about the allocation, it‘s interesting.
J: Well, I‘m also learning during this interview…
S: Yes. [laughing]
J: …because, as a staff member, we‘ve always been told by the director that he has no control over where they go but only the board could decide where the students are sent for field education and that we must wait until the board tells him where we can send the students. So we also have had no input. He‘s told us that the board will tell us where we can send people. --- This is June 20th, this is part three after an interruption, sorry.
S: OK, yeah, this is, this is interesting because, no, it‘s not, we don‘t, the board doesn‘t allocate, doesn‘t assign. We are told, we are told, yeah, where they have been assigned to.
J: I see. Alright.
S: Hm.
J: So it seems as if we‘ve both had an eye-opening here as we‘re sitting talking.
S: Yes.
J: OK, well that helps us to understand the process, I think.
S: Yes.
J: And just quickly on field education, and again, thank you so much for all of this time. I really appreciate it. I‘m not sure about criteria for the field education experience, whether or not there are goals that are set, and also integration into the wider syllabus of the seminary. Are those the kinds of things that the board has talked about or dealt with in the past?
174
S: No.J: OK.
S: We just know that there is that field work thing and how it all fits together with the rest of other pieces of training.
J: Have you received written reports at the end of the field education experience?
S: No, not written reports. Uh-uh, we haven‘t.
J: OK, so during your time as the board chairperson and also during the previous administration during your time as a member of the board, you don‘t remember seeing written…
S: No.
J: …reports about the students.
S: About the students…
J: Either from the pastor to whom they were attached or from the director or from the student him or herself.
S: What I remember is if there‘s an issue with regard to a particular student in a particular parish, then there might be a report to say, ―There was some problems with this and…‖ and so forth. Otherwise, mm-mm, no. Yes, because that‘s another interesting question, yes…
J: I also…
S: …yes, because we need to know what kind of experiences and how can we, if we don‘t, how can we be even talking about instituting some improvements if we don‘t know what the situation is, if we don‘t know what that program, how is it helpful, how is it helpful to the students, what are some of the problems, how can we even begin to improve on it when we don‘t have elaborate reports.
J: Now, this is another area of opening my eyes. In three academic years I, as a lecturer, have never seen a report but I‘ve inquired and I‘ve been told by the director that these reports are only for the board of directors, or rather, yeah, the board of the seminary.
S: No.
J: I see, so I‘m not seeing them and also you‘re not seeing them…
S: No.
J: …if they exist.
S: No. Well, if they exist, yes.
(A 3.11-3.13; Sebatane; 410-412; 490-588)
The Chairperson of the Board clearly assumes that there is (or should be) collaborative work being done at the level of the faculty regarding Field Education placements. It is also clear that the Board practices no deliberation vis-à-vis these placements. Additionally, Professor Sebatane has never seen reports from the Field Education experiences. Professor Sebatane was, at the time at which we spoke for this interview, in his second term on the MTS Board, a well- informed and faithful lay participant in the life of the LEC, and a scholar and administrator at the National University of Lesotho. He has both the tenure of involvement and intellectual acumen to participate helpfully in the processes related to Field Education along with many other intelligent
and caring members of the seminary Board. Note that the Board Chairperson assumes that the Director selects placement sites and sees reports, while the President of the Seboka seems unclear about the process. Faculty members, such as myself, have been told that these selections are made by the Board. The Director reiterates these assertions during my interview with him:
J: We have it in the fourth year for the theological students and how are the field education parishes selected for the students?
M: Uh, huh. Well, normally the seminary board, who is the one who does the work, they first look at the pastor because we don‘t just send a student to a parish but we send them to parishes with pastors. They just say, ―Yes, it‘s pastor so-and-so, can we really trust him well enough to place a student in his parish or in her parish?‖
And they debate and finally they would agree or do not agree and they say, ―No, not this one but let‘s try pastor so-and-so.‖ Sometimes they would be happy with the pastor and not happy with the consistory because they say, ―Within this year that we plan to send a student, a pastor may get a transfer to go somewhere else. Do we have a strong enough consistory to work with a student, to really give him enough and proper training as a future pastor of the church?‖ So these are the two things which they always look at when they place a student. There‘s a pastor and also a consistory.
J: I see. Do you ever make suggestions of pastors and consistories that the board might use?
M: Yes, yes, yes, I always do that. I always do that but they always don‘t agree with me. They can say, ―Yes, we see your suggestion but because of ABC we don‘t really have a recommend.‖
(A 4.13; Moseme; 432; 537-553)
Moseme‘s description of the collaborative nature of the process does not seem to match Sebatane‘s description of the ―rubber stamp‖ process he has observed. In fact, Sebatane seems to regard the process as one that has been completed by the time it reaches the Board. I also asked the Director about the reports from the Field Education experiences – reports, he has told students and faculty members, that the Board receives and reviews:
J: During my first year of teaching here, I remember asking you about reports when the students come back and you shared yes, the board receives reports.
M: Yeah, exactly.
J: What kind of reports does the board receive about these students?
M: The students – the consistories themselves, though of late most of them I don‘t know, maybe they don‘t have time to do so, the write reports concerning the students to say ‗we have had student so-and-so with us for this one academic year.‘
And they always would mention how they lived together with the students. And they have observed the strengths of the students as far as the ministry‘s concerned.
They have also observed the weaknesses of the students and the whole intention is for the seminary to try, especially when it comes to weaknesses, to try and help the students with the weaknesses that got exposed during the internship year. So that is the kind of a report which we always get.
J: And is there a student report and a pastor report as well, or just the consistory‘s?
176
M: Um, there are supposed to be two. There are supposed to be two – the consistory report and the pastor‘s report. The consistory report would always be a general report which doesn‘t really even go into the weaknesses of the students, not unless they were so obvious that the consistory would not want to skip them. But the pastor‘s report, since it is a private report, which is written by one person, they will always say exactly what they think of the student and that report the consistory always doesn‘t know, it‘s only written by the pastor himself or herself straight to the seminary.J: OK. And does that go to the seminary board or to whom does that report go?
M: To the seminary board.
J: I see.
M: Yes, to the seminary board but, like I say, I think we are not strict enough because I think during the last two-three years, people don‘t seem to really write these reports.159
J: Mm.
M: Yes, because I remember we still don‘t have reports for students who have even graduated from the seminary about two years ago.
J: Really? So some you receive reports, others you still haven‘t … M: Others don‘t, yes, others don‘t, yeah.
J: You mentioned that if the weaknesses and strengths can help the seminary to know how to help the students…
M: Exactly.
J: It sounds like a wonderful idea but I‘ve never seen those reports so in my courses I haven‘t been able to address those strengths and weaknesses.
M: Mm, hm.
J: Does the faculty ever receive the reports so that we can work together on the strengths and weaknesses?
M: No, I think the only thing is that we really don‘t get them all, these reports, for a group of six we may get one or two. So it doesn‘t really help much but if you would like to see them I think you are really free to do so.
J: OK.
M: Yeah, it‘s only that consistories and pastors don‘t seem to be interested in the writing of these reports.
J: Do you think could there be in the future maybe a form…
M: Mm, hm.
J: …that they‘re required to fill and even the students…
M: Mm, hm.
J: …and, because we have several expatriate lecturers, could we ask the students and the pastors, who both know English well,…
M: Mm.
J: …could write the reports in English so that we could sit together as a faculty…
159 Field Education supervisors with whom I spoke each indicated that they had, indeed, regularly submitted these reports. Students, as well, seemed to know if and when Dr. Moseme had received these reports.
M: Mm, mm.
J: …and say, for instance, ―Ah, we see this young pastor in training really had a hard time speaking in public…
M: Exactly.
J: …so let‘s all in our different classes think about giving him good opportunities…
M: Mm, mm.
J: …and good instruction.‖
M: Mm, and still it would also want a proper way for handling it because one other thing which we are very sensitive of is that, especially when it comes to weaknesses, we don‘t want the students to know what the consistories or even the pastors have said about them because the always don‘t take them as, you know, advices they are, they will always think ‗our pastors are speaking ill of us, consistories are speaking ill of us‘ so if we do that, you see, that confidentiality will be somehow violated because if it‘s discussed in classrooms, it may end up reaching the students themselves which may not please them.
J: Well, yeah, I was suggesting the faculty discussing it but you‘re saying the students aren‘t told what the pastors and consistories have said about them.
M: Oh, no, oh, no, we only tell them about positive things but if they said that
‗this student did not sleep in the house we have allocated to him, he slept in the village‘ no we cannot say that because we know that we are going to make the student unhappy and, at the end of the day, there will be that bad feeling between the pastor and the student themselves. Ours will always be ‗how can we go about this so that we can help this student‘ but not revealing that the information we have is from the parish where the student was.
J: I see. And so far, as I say, I‘ve never seen any of these reports…
M: Mm.
J: …do my Basotho colleagues see these reports or are you as the director the one who has seen them only?
M: No, not the teaching staff, the teaching staff have not seen them at all.
J: OK.
M: Yes, and I think really the fear was still this that it may leak and, at the end of the day, the students may know that people have reported, you know, negatively on them when they were at the parish.
J: So how are the reports useful for the future of the students?
M: They are useful in the sense that at the end, the seminary board who gives the names of the students for allocation for parishes to the executive committee would mention that during the student internship year this kind of thing was observed and we do recommend that the students be dealt with in this way so that we do help them as far as their future ministry is concerned. So the whole intention really is to try and help the student.
J: OK. I see. And do the students also write reports reflecting on…
M: Yes, yes, the students also write reports concerning their experience for this one academic year at this particular parish and they also write about positive things and also about negative things concerning the pastors also and there‘s no way we can share that information with pastors and consistories because the report is also regarded confidential.
J: I see. And who received those reports and reads them.