Professor Lephoto has just ended her enventful tenure both as the Pro Vice Chancellor of the esteemed National University of Lesotho (NUL) and, recently, as the acting Vice Chancellor. Her achievements are numerous, but the Innovators of the Roma Valley will remember her for the role both she and the former Vice Chancellor Professor Nqosa Mahao played in advancing the dream of innovation at the NUL.
A loving mother at heart, she will always be remembered for her gentleness even when dealing with tough issues.
But who is Professor Manthoto H. Lephoto‚ (
BA + CCE (NUL), MEd (Tennessee State), PhD [International Education] (USC))?
Associate Professor Manthoto H. Lephoto left NUL as the acting Vice Chancellor at the National University of Lesotho, the position she held from 1st June, 2019 and taking over from the hands of Professor Nqosa Mahao who parted ways with NUL on 31st May, 2019. Before taking the Acting Vice-Chancellor’s duties, Prof. Lephoto was the Pro-Vice-Chancellor at NUL since December 2015.
She started her career as a lecturer in Finance and Materials Management in the then Lesotho Institute of Public Administration which is today LIPAM from 1978 to 1983. She joined NUL in 1983 as a lecturer in the then Business Training Center of IEMS whose main responsibility was to train business people. She has academically grown within IEMS moving from noncredit programmes of entrepreneurship to credit programmes of business studies and adult education. She has been a programme coordinator, a head of department, a deputy director and a Director of IEMS.
During her term at IEMS, the Institute has grown in terms of enrolment, in terms of numbers and levels of programme offering. Today the Institute is transforming from a purely part time mode into an open and distance learning (ODL) mode‚ in order to respond to the current need to open more access to NUL programmes to more Basotho who are not able to attend full time.
Prof. Lephoto is very passionate about the ODL delivery mode and sees it as a great opportunity to bring University education to the educationally disadvantaged nationals and also to respond to capacity building for the working population.
Her other areas of interest include community development, gender, adult education and leadership.
Hamba Kahle Prof.