Mauritius: Stay the course

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the Mauritius Times
http://www.mauritiustimes.com/200105sooba.htm

Grit your teeth and stay the course, Minister Gokhool

-- Paramanund Soobarah

I am not privy to the plans of Minister Gokhool. All I know about them is
what I read in the press. Having been a victim of the Mauritian education
system and having paid dearly all through my adult life because of its
linguistic defects, and living through the heart-rending experience of
watching young relatives and friends as capable any set of youngsters as
anywhere in the world fail or under-perform at their School Certificate
exams, I take a keen interest in our education system and, having more
than thirty years senior level management experience in an international
setting, I believe I know what is wrong with the system. I am pleasantly
surprised and most encouraged to find the Minister Gokhool has begun by
addressing the system where it needs it most.

We want every child in Mauritius to receive the best possible education
that develops their individual potentialities to the fullest possible
extent for their own benefit and for the benefit of the community. In our
multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural society, the education
system must also deliver social harmony; to that end every child must also
be brought up to respect the life, beliefs, customs, feelings and
properties of others. Beyond the children themselves, important aspects of
the education system that must be addressed are firstly, what to teach in
general (the National Curriculum) and to groups or sets (to each set its
own best-suited skill or art), what medium to teach it in (language
policy), how to teach it (teacher training and development), where to
teach (provision of schools) and how to check the quality of the teaching
and the learning (examination policy).

In Mauritius, almost every aspect of education is politically charged:
some have vested interests in keeping things as they are; others want
change but cant agree on the precise element to change or manner of
changing it. But the emerging world business environment and the economic
circumstances of Mauritius demand change, and change that will prepare us
to take part in cut-throat competition for survival. Changes were
introduced by the MMM-MSM government, but they were all retrograde steps.
Ranking and Star Schools were abolished: the system certainly required
adjustment but not outright abolition. New schools were built at great
cost on credit, totally disregarding the capabilities of the private
sector in secondary education: with a little assistance this sector could
have accommodated the excess output of our primary education system
without significantly increasing our debt burden. The children taught in
those new schools will probably be paying interest on the debts incurred
all through their adult working lives by way of direct and indirect taxes.
No steps were taken to produce the extra teachers necessary. Education was
made compulsory until the age of 16, depriving potentially good tradesmen
of the discipline of strict apprenticeship, at a time when we need good
tradesmen in the building industry: it is a national shame that in a
country with the intelligence level of Mauritians, tradesmen have to be
recruited from abroad.

It will take time to undo the damage done. For the record, the 2005 CPE
results show that 40% of our boys and 30% of our girls failed their exam
after six years of schooling under their system. These results must be
seen against the background where passes in English and French can be
scored just by addressing the comprehension aspects of the question
papers; a good proportion of children having officially passed the CPE
will be unable to write a single simple sentence correctly in either
English or French. These results come after not just five but twenty years
of the application of MMM-MSM education policies. It is true that Labour
was in power for five years during the period but their watch started out
as a coalition with them and no major policy changes were initiated in the
field of education. For the record also, crime, for which they provided a
very suitable gestation conditions (moralit na pas plein ventre) has been
on the rise as to be expected. The 2005 School Certificate results,
particularly in English, Mathematics and the Sciences will in all
likelihood confirm the catastrophic trend set by their ideologies.

A public education system cannot attend to each child individually for
every single waking instant. Even parents, should they decide to attend to
the education of their children personally, cannot give each child such
attention. Public education systems, by their very nature, are systems of
mass production. In such a system it is not possible for every item to be
hand made. For best results, the raw material has to be organised and
batched to simplify processing. Hypocritical moralists may take exception
to this analogy, but to organisers, managers and policy makers, schools
are in effect factories that convert their raw material (young children)
into intermediate-level products ready for the next stage of processing.

One of the essential aspects of the organisation of the material has to be
what is known locally as streaming but is more commonly known in the UK as
setting, that is to say organising children into sets of more or less
equal ability. Thus organised, they are much easier to process: each set
can be dispensed the resources and teaching methods most appropriate to
its needs. Weak children can be given special attention in a timely
manner. Prime Minister Tony Blair of UK promised setting in schools in
England way back in 1997, but he has been held back by what we here call
la base. Tory Leader David Cameron has promised to extend setting to all
State schools if his party is returned to power. Experience has shown that
schools where setting is practised deliver better results for all students
than schools that run mixed ability classes.

Setting, or streaming, must take place within schools, within regions
(assuming they are honestly homogeneous, not the hodge-podge concocted by
Minister Steve Obeegadoo), and nationally, at all levels of the primary
and secondary education system. Suitable stages for carrying out the
exercise are at the ends of Standard 2 (regionally), Standard 4 (within
schools), standard 6 (CPE, regionally and nationally), Form III
(nationally) and Form V (nationally). A start had to be made at some point
for re-introducing streaming: Minister Dharam Gokhool has picked on the
CPE level, that is to say the interface between the primary and secondary
levels, to introduce the change. As I see it, this point has the added
advantage of leading naturally to the organisation of national and
regional streams in secondary education.

For the time being all secondary schools will be Forms I-VI schools. I
have no doubt in my mind that financial constraints and concern for
optimisation of resources will lead to most regional schools limiting
themselves to Forms I-V, concentrating the teaching of the Form VI
material they produce into one or two regional Form I-VI schools.
(Students with very poor passes at the School Certificate level should not
be automatically authorised to proceed to the Form VI at government
expense -- these are the proper candidates for privately run Form VI
colleges.) The regional schools may have to specialise in the subjects
they teach: for instance, some may opt for science subjects and others for
humanities or arts. It wont be necessary and may even be quite wasteful
for every regional secondary school to teach everything. Why set up
physics, chemistry and biology labs at all schools when they are likely to
be under-used at some of them. Some facilities could even be set up
sub-regionally (science labs, swimming pools, football stadia, etc.) to
serve more than one regional school. The process of batching must continue
right through. The changes will have to be brought in slowly but
decisively, to meet the demands of the new globalised world as they
manifest themselves to our education system. The authorities will have to
watch out carefully or, to use a more appropriate analogy, listen out
carefully for the signals and play it by ear. That will be a better policy
than setting out every guideline in concrete and be stuck with them in a
fast changing world. Bureaucracy is the greatest enemy of change and
progress.

As to be expected, the Ministers first step has brought down on him the
wrath of national press and of those with vested interests in the status
quo. They assume that streaming will show up systematic weaknesses in
certain ethnical groups. Assuming this is the case (which I doubt very
much), leaving the children concerned in mixed ability classes will never
permit any special attention being given to them to overcome whatever
problems they may have. They will remain hidden in the mixed ability
classes until they ultimately fail the School Certificate, and become
problems for themselves, for their parents, and for society in general.
For their protection and in their own interests, children with weaknesses
must be identified at the earliest possible stage to enable remedial
action to be taken in their favour. We trust that Minister Gokhool will
introduce such differential and affirmative action in the interests of
weak children when (hopefully) he introduces streaming in primary schools.
It will take time to prepare teachers to carry out such a policy; it would
be best to train the teachers before bringing the policy change. As all
teachers cannot be trained in one go, it would be best to introduce the
change gradually, beginning with selected schools in each region, and
extending them gradually until the entire country is covered.

While this article is about Education, we cannot dissociate ourselves from
general political developments in the country. There is the huge burden of
debt it is there whoever created it. There are the adverse economic
environment created by globalisation, the abolition of trade preferences,
the phenomenal rise in the cost of petroleum products and the concomitant
rise in the prices of power and transportation, the general price rises of
goods (practically all of which we import, down to vegetables and milk),
the built-in rigidities of our economic system, inflexible trade unions
which have priced our labour out of the market and led us to live above
our means, the largesses of successive governments to favourites and to
civil servants, curtailing which may be essential for budgetary reasons,
the computerisation of our Civil Service for the improvement of its
productivity, a process which should result in some downsizing, etc, etc.
The Labour-led government must act decisively to resolve these problems,
all of which can result in considerable unpopularity for it. It is to be
hoped that they introduce the changes in such a way that the positive
effects become palpable in about four years time, as otherwise there is a
great risk that the Bandar Log will be back in force in four and a half
years and undo all the painstaking work of Minister Dharam Gokhool. Prime
Minister Navin Ramgoolam and Deputy Prime Minister Rama Sithanen must take
into account that it is not only their future, but the future of the
entirety of the Mauritian youth, including those yet to be born, that is
at stake. With the wishy-washy education policies of the MMM-MSM
pseudo-intellectual gentry, there is no way that we can meet the
challenges of the coming globalisation.

One must assume that the statement of Rt Revd Maurice Piat is the position
of the Catholic Church on the education policies of the government. In
Mauritius the question of the separation of Church and State has not been
addressed, which is a great pity. I am personally for such a separation
(as in France) and totally against, for instance, the States subsidizing
religions and over-meddling in matters cultural. Even so, we will not
pursue the question further here. If one understands the Right Reverend
correctly, he is against all grading at the CPE; what is not very clear is
whether he is for classifying CPE results as passes and fails, or just as
passes. Such a system will produce mixed ability classes in secondary
schools, which is precisely what he wants. But in such classes the speed
of the class is the speed of the slowest, unless the teacher commits the
crime of disregarding the weaker pupils or, worse, asks them to come to
his private tuition classes against payment.

With automatic promotion year after year parents will never know the real
strengths of their children until they reach the first real examination of
our system, namely the School Certificate. Then the Right Reverend will
not be around to console them and offer a means of livelihood to the
children, who will consider themselves too educated to engage in manual
work. These children must eat, dress and entertain themselves like all
others, and their only recourse will be to engage in petty crime when it
is not drug addiction and major crime. Such a policy will leave Mauritius
totally unprepared to meet the challenges of the coming international
business environment, and we will be reduced to begging and crawling for
assistance as many African countries sadly have to do. In response to the
other-worldly proposals of the Right Reverend, Minister Dharam Gokool will
be well advised to reply Non possumus.

Some say that elitist policies are antidemocratic and do not exist
anywhere in the world. This is absolutely false and calculated to mislead
the population. Which major countrys education system does not engage in
some streaming and production of elites? What happens in the Comores or
the Seychelles is neither here nor there. We are talking of major
countries. The only country I know that took stiff measures against
elitism is the Peoples Republic of China, then under the leadership of
Chairman Mao Tse Tung. Fortunately, for the benefit of the Chinese people,
of China and of the world, President Teng Hsiao Ping reversed all his
predecessors policies, and see what China has become today. If democracy
means that everybody must be as stupid or as poor as the most stupid and
the poorest in the nation, we would rather do without it. But that is a
very stupid view of democracy.

Some say that Mr Gokhools policies will encourage private tuition. Mr
Gokhool has not invented the fashion of private tuition. Nor did Mr
Obeegadoos policies have any effect on reducing it. I certainly agree that
from the way it is organised in Mauritius, private tuition is a bad thing
particularly when teachers insist that all their pupils attend their
private classes against payment, and that those who do not are boycotted
in class. This in my view deserves the death penalty. But private tuition
being ingrained in Mauritian mores, there is little that Mr Gokhool can do
about it in the present climate. Parents believe that if they do not
arrange for private tuition for their children, they will be failing in
their parental obligations.

Private tuition in Mauritius is a little like the practice in one African
country where mothers spend hours training their babies to sit, believing
that if they do not do so, their babies will never learn to sit. The same
sort of thing goes on in America, where mothers feel duty-bound to train
their babies to speak a totally unnecessary effort. Both sitting and
speaking come to human babies from their genes. If the Opposition can join
hands with the government on the question of streaming, a national policy
on private tuition can be framed for compelling teachers to give
after-hour lessons to the weaker classes at government expense. At the
same time, prep classes can be organised for the other classes to stay
behind at school to complete their homework. Such a system (of keeping
pupils behind for prep-work) was indeed introduced at RCC in the late
forties by Rector Dr Anthony Constant; sadly, the system was abolished on
his departure.

Some say that taking into account performance in Asian Languages will
favour those opting for these subjects. This is a monstrous piece of
falsehood but as it seems to stem from genuine fear we must ask those
capable of believing it to calmly consider the facts. One language test
can certainly be easier to a candidate than another, either because the
question paper is easier, or because the candidate is more familiar with
the language. Greater familiarity can arise because greater effort made in
the study of the language or because it is spoken at home. The possibility
that the MES sets its question papers in Asian languages at an easier
level than in English or French has to be discarded: the evidence
available points to the contrary. The statistics published by MES on its
website shows that for the year 2005, the pass rates in Hindi, Urdu,
Tamil, Arabic and Chinese are lower than in English and French. In Marathi
the pass rate is lower than in English but very marginally greater than in
French. Only in Telugu is the pass rate higher than in both English and
French. The proportion of candidates offering Telugu is so small compared
to the number of candidates offering Asian Languages that it does not
affect the general trend which is that performance in Asian languages is
systematically lower than in English and French.

We can make the counter charge that, except for Telugu, the examination
papers in Asian languages are harder than in English and French. The only
situation that can conceivably give rise to claims of unfairness is when
competence in the language offered is also spoken at home. That is a
situation that has always arisen with candidates who speak French at home.
How many Mauritian families speak Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi,
Arabic or Chinese at home? I am not personally aware of any. There are
still some homes where Bhojpuri is spoken; but Mauritian Bhojpuri has
deteriorated to such a degree under the influence of Creole that it can
hardly be considered of any help towards Hindi at all. In any case their
number is dwindling very fast, and is smaller than that of French-speaking
homes. Should we address the question of unfairness in scoring the French
question paper because so many candidates are advantaged because they
speak French at home?

A campaign of intimidation is on, and will be getting fiercer. Some have
even spoken of genocide: one remembers the instance when London was shut
down because a paper wanted the show the might of the press by publishing
the false information that all lions, tigers and other wild animals had
escaped from the London Zoo. The population must remain on its guard, and
not allow itself to be swept off its feet by the prophets of doom. Their
real fear is that it might expose some ethnic groups as being weaker than
others. If their fears are founded, than streaming will bring relief to
the communities concerned, as the government will be obliged to devote
additional resources in the interests of the weaker groups. Just add up
the amounts that have been spent (and not recovered) on assistance in
housing of the poor since 1960 when Cyclone Carol blew down most houses,
and see who has benefited the most from these charity schemes. Nobody is
against assistance to the poor and the weak, but all reasonable persons
take exception to holding the nation back through a campaign of lies and
intimidation. If no sign of weakness in the habitat of some people had
been apparent, no government would have spent a penny on it. Mauritians
cannot have it both ways: either they accept to identify and help the
weak, or turn out middling or worse as a nation.

Paramanund Soobarah
soobarah.param at gmail.com


Copyright  2005 Mauritius Times.