Your Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations Lejone Mpotjoana, organizers of the HOLOLO Development Foundation, students and teachers of Bokoro High School and other schools:

I have graduated from school for many years. Today, I am very excited to put on the school uniform again and return to school. I would like to thank His Honorable Lejone Mpotjoana and HDF for their kind invitation. And I’d like to take this opportunity to share the following words with the students and teachers present.

There is an old Chinese saying: “Without being carved, a jade can’t be a work of art; If one does not learn, he’ll not know human virtues.” It means that if diamonds are not cut, they cannot become jewelry; If people do not learn, they will not understand the truth. Learning is crucial to personal growth. I hope that students will cherish your wonderful time at school to study hard, to make progress every day, and eventually to achieve success in your studies.

President Xi Jinping once said: “It is a stroke of luck for an individual to encounter a good teacher, an honor for a school to have good teachers, and a hope for a nation to continuously produce one batch after another of good teachers.” I hope that teachers will devote yourself to the cause of education and shoulder the mission of cultivating talents.

Chinese people often say that no matter how poor you are, you must not be poor in education; No matter how hard it is, you must not make your children suffer. For a country, talent is the most important resource. We must make full use of the fundamental role of education in stopping poverty from being passed on to the next generation.

Students and teachers,

Over the past 75 years, we have witnessed the steady progress of China’s education cause and the opening up of a path for the development of socialist education with Chinese characteristics. We have built the largest education system in the world, made historic strides in making education universally available, and established the objective of becoming a leading country in education by 2035. At the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, 80% of the population was illiterate, and the gross enrollment rate of higher education was only 0.26%. In 2023, China had nearly 500,000 schools of all levels and types, more than 290 million academic education students; The average years of education for new labor force exceeded 14 years; The number of college graduates exceeded 10 million; And secondary as well as higher vocational schools trained about 10 million high-quality technical and skilled talents each year.

With a literacy rate of 89.6% and a primary education coverage rate of 69.3%, Lesotho ranks among the top countries in sub-Saharan Africa and has the full potential to promote its modernization by actively developing education.The HFD Back to School provides practical help to local students, especially underprivileged students, enabling them to continue their education and bring out their best.

Students and teachers,

Recognizing that the importance of education cooperation in the sustainable development of China-Africa cooperation and young people as well as the future generations represent the hope of China-Africa relationship, China has carried out educational cooperation with African countries and cultivate various talents for Africa over the years.

China and Lesotho have sound cooperation in the field of education for a long time . In January 2017, as an important outcome of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the China-Lesotho Fellowship Collegiate had been handed over. In April, the first Confucius Classroom was inaugurated at Machabeng College International School of Lesotho. The Confucius Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology at National University of Lesotho was established in October last year as an important outcome of the Beijing Summit of FOCAC and will be unveiled in April this year. I believe that it will make greater contributions to the exchanges of agricultural science and technology as well as Chinese culture between China and Lesotho. In addition, China has received nearly 400 Lesotho students with Chinese government scholarship and will continue to provide more opportunities for study in China.

I will take off the uniform and leave the school after the event. However, China’s support for Basotho education will always be here. I sincerely hope that more Basotho students will inject fresh blood and dynamics into the China-Lesotho strategic partnership by working hard, so as to jointly write a new chapter in the all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era.