The Junior Scholarship

Mauritius Times – 60 Years

By Peter Ibbotson

For historical reasons not altogether unconnected with certain more unsavoury aspects of colonialism, widespread provision of education in the colonies has tended to be restricted to the provision of primary education. Secondary education, where it existed, was in the main restricted to the children of the local ruling elites: Codrington College, Barbados, and the Royal College, Curepipe, spring to mind as examples.

The demand for secondary education spread, however, and more provision had to be made in colony after colony. But, thanks to historical accident, in the colonies secondary education became equated with what in the UK we know as grammar school education — the tradition of an academic education fitting its recipient for a white-collar job in the local Civil Service or local commercial or industrial establishments. Hardly anywhere was it recognised that there were other forms of secondary education. Even in 1959, many colonial people still persist in equating secondary education with grammar school education; they do not, even yet, understand that there are other possible forms which secondary, or post primary, education can take.

Since there is a great demand for secondary education among the colonial peoples, a demand greater than the provision by the colonial governments, it follows that private enterprise has in many colonies had to step in and fill the gaps. In Mauritius it is (i) the Roman Catholic Church and a few other religious organizations, and (ii) private individuals that we find filing the gaps in the provision of secondary schools. But all these non-governmental providers (some successful, others not so successful) of secondary schools are still providing schools where education of the grammar school type is (or is intended to be) provided. The School Certificate or the GCE remains the target for the secondary school pupil, whether at the Royal College, one of the Loreto Convents, or some private college.

Because of this concentration on academic, grammar school, education, Mr Luce rightly criticised secondary education in Mauritius as being out of touch with modern needs. In Singapore, the PAP (People’s Action Party) recently crashed its way to power with a forward-looking manifesto which promised among other things more training of the people in technical skills and “school instruction to have a more Asian emphasis and more concentration on subjects that have a direct bearing on our lives today. The traditional concept that education is the means for acquiring a white-collar job must go overboard”. These words apply equally to Mauritius. Secondary education in Mauritius to most people still means the GCE or SC, and a clerical job or the Civil Service. People must understand that secondary education has a much wider meaning. They must understand that technical education is secondary education; that agricultural education at a post-primary school is secondary education; that a commercially biassed education at a post-primary school is secondary education. Today secondary education has a much, much wider meaning than it had 50, 40, even 20 years ago.

Until there are more secondary schools, provided by the Government, then free secondary education cannot be provided for all who want it. Therefore, those who are going to have it must be selected in some way; in Mauritius, the way is the Junior Scholarship examination. A pupil’s success in this examination brings credit to his school; therefore, we find some schools where there is cramming for the examination, so that the school can get as many scholarships as possible. In other schools, especially in the towns, we find special scholarship classes; but if a scholarship winner attends a school only in standard Vl, the Education Department gives the credit to the pupil’s previous school. Not so, the public, however; they give the credit, shortsightedly, to the school where the pupil is in attendance at the time, he wins his scholarship.

Mr Nichols (who unfortunately died a month or so ago) criticised the Junior Scholarship examination on the grounds that “it encourages cramming, and its basis is too narrow to ensure even reasonable accuracy of election”. He asked in his report (dated 1947) for more than the then 20 annual scholarships; we have seen that increase, for last year under the now Education Code there were 125 awarded. But the narrowness of the scholarship remains: English, French, Arithmetic and Geography. Nor is there yet any apparent awareness of modern trends or research in selection examination practice. The Mauritius test papers in English and Arithmetic, for example, have not been standardised; that is to say, they have not been scientifically constructed with an eye to their fitness for 12-year-olds. In the Mauritius Times we have often criticised the compulsory French paper, too: justice and fairness demand that this be abolished since it gives an advantage to the child from a home where French is the mother tongue. And why Geography as the fourth examination subject? For that matter, why a fourth at all? (If the answer is to reduce the narrowness to which the junior school curriculum could be lowered, I would ask why not examine the candidates in other subjects in addition, to reduce the degree of possible narrowness even further.)

Mr Nichol’s criticisms have not been met, and the public is still dissatisfied with the scholarship examination. The teachers are still more dissatisfied. Reform of the examination is long overdue: along the lines of: (i) abolition of examination in French and Geography; (ii) replacement of the present English and Arithmetic examinations by standardised tests of the kind employed in England and Wales for grammar school selection; (iii) introduction of an intelligence test in place of French and Geography; (iv) use of pupils’ record cards throughout the primary school.

I realise that all these are drastic and major reforms which could not be lightly undertaken. It would seem appropriate, therefore, that there should be a commission of enquiry into secondary education in Mauritius with terms of reference specifically including “to enquire into the method of selection for secondary education, and to make recommendations”.

Of course, it is possible to provide secondary education without selection at the age 11 or 12. In London, there are several secondary schools, called ‘comprehensive’, which are not selective, and which take pupils of all degrees of ability. Hon. Beejadhur visited one such, Woodberry Down (its headteacher is the wife of a Labour MP) before going to the Commonwealth Conference at Oxford. He told me after his visit that he had been very favourably impressed. It is possible that there is scope for the establishment of comprehensive schools in Mauritius especially when the Government comes to build secondary schools to serve the rural north and the rural south. I have argued the case for such schools in both Advance and the Mauritius Times before now: while I would like to see non-selective secondary schools in Mauritius, as in all colonies as well as in the UK, I realise that this cannot be done except as a long-term policy.Therefore, l ask  that the present method of selection for secondary schools be overhauled. If we are to have a selection let us have efficient selection; and efficient selection is what we just have not got.

Because we have got efficient selection, is it to be wondered that public confidence in the Junior Scholarship examination is noticeably lacking? That people are cynical about their child’s chances in the examination if they live in a country district? That people are pessimistic about their child’s chances if their mother-tongue is not French?

That parents of Hindi-speaking, Tamil-speaking, Telugu-speaking, Urdu-speaking, etc., children do not see why their child should have to examined at the age of 12 in two foreign languages: English and French? A commission of enquiry into, among other educational matters, selection for secondary education would be a very popular move; and it would doubtless uncover some very interesting truths about the award of scholarships to rural and urban schoolchildren; about the social standing of the homes of the scholarship winners; about the mother-tongues of the scholarship winners, etc.

Not that purely educational factors enter into a child’s success, or lack of success, at school. Non-educational, or should I say non-academic factors, such as home circumstances, affect a child’s scholastic performance more than is sometimes realised. (I have referred to this in a pamphlet on secondary education which I recently wrote for the National Association of Labour Teachers; it costs 9d, or 50 cents).

The issue of La Vie Catholique for July 5 carries an article in which reference is made to the fact that Port Louis schools “ont uniformément moins de succès que les écoles similaires ailleurs”; this in the writer’s opinion is because “les élèves fréquentant ces écoles de Port Louis viennent de milieux où… les parents ne peuvent que partiellement fournir à leurs enfants une nourriture suffisante et des conditions de travail favorables”. This opinion is one which is widely held among sociologists and educationists everywhere: that school performances are conditioned by home circumstances. And until we can improve people’s homes, we cannot hope to improve the educational chances of all their children and make adequate provision for the full development of every child’s talents and personality.

Yet it is on the degree of success we attain in developing everyone’s potentiality to the full that the future of Mauritius ultimately depends. Our educational system shapes our country’s future; that system therefore must be the fairest possible.

6th Year – No 258
Friday 24th July 1959

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 15 December 2023