Educational Expansion

Mauritius Times – 70 Years

By Peter Ibbotson

Ten years ago, the Education Department carried out a survey of existing school accommodation and prepared a five-year plan for both primary and secondary school building. 56 new primary schools, providing places for another 12,000 children, were envisaged. A girls’ secondary school for 300 girls was to be built; the Royal College and the Royal College School were to be rebuilt and expanded to accommodate 500 boys each instead of 300. The annual teacher turn-out of the Training College was to be raised to 150.

Let us go back to 1950 and look at some figures relating to the state of educational provision at that time. There were 140 primary schools (Mauritius and Rodrigues together) with 1,411 teachers and 55,283 pupils. There were but two Government secondary schools, both for boys: the Royal College, with 296 pupils, and the Royal College School, with 228 pupils. Less than a hundred teachers had been trained at the Training College.

Now let us look at 1958. The number of primary schools had risen to 183; an increase of 43 whereas the plan has said 56. But, against this, the number of pupils had risen to 100,551; the first time in the history of Mauritius that the number of pupils in primary schools had exceeded 100,000. This was 45,228 pupils more than in 1950; but the plan had foreshadowed only 12,000 more in the 56 new schools. So, although the number of new schools was less than had been planned, there had been a tremendous number of additional classrooms built in order that this huge increase in school population could be accommodated. In 1958 there were three Government secondary schools: Royal College and Royal College School for boys, and Queen Elizabeth College for girls (opened by Lady Blood in 1951). The number of pupils at the secondary schools was 438 (College), 497 (School), and 217 (Q.E.).

These numbers are the 1957 school rolls. Thus, the target of 500 at each boys’ school and 300 at the girls’ school were practically reached. And the turnout of trained teachers in 1957 (I haven’t the 1958 figures as yet) was 218, plus 12 handicraft teachers – well in excess of the plan’s target of 150 which was first exceeded in 1955.

Although the total number of primary school pupils rose so much between 1950 and 1958, and the colony’s record teacher training and secondary schools was so good, expenditure on education did not absorb in 1957 as great a proportion of the colony’s expenditure as might have been expected. In 1950, total education expenditure was Rs 6,188.689; eight years later this had become Rs 18,596.750, or three times as much. But, in 1950, the education budget had been 9 per cent of the colony’s total recurrent expenditure, whereas the three-fold increase in 1958 was only 11.7 per cent of the colony’s total recurrent expenditure. The great expansion… over 45,000 extra pupils, with 43 new schools and over 400 additional classrooms at existing schools, a new secondary school and 628 extra secondary school pupils, training college expansion, and 2,630 teachers in the primary schools (1958) as against only 1,4ll (in 1950) — of educational facilities in general was accompanied by only a 2.7 p.c. increase in the proportion of the colony’s expenditure devoted to education.

Look at it this way. The colony spent 9 per cent. of its budget on education in 1950; Rs 6 million out of a total of Rs 68.75 million. (I am using round figures in this paragraph) The total budget in 1958 was Rs 158 million, if the same proportion as in 1950 had been spent on education, the education expenditure would have been Rs 14.25 million. But, in fact it was 11.7 per cent, or Rs 18.5 million. But, instead of 55,000 children being taught by 1,411 teachers for your 9 per cent of expenditure, you had 100,000 children being taught by 2,630 teachers for your 11.7 per cent of expenditure. Which is the better value to the taxpayer? Obviously, the latter.

Another pertinent fact to take into account is this. In 1950, out of every 10 children who could have been enrolled at a primary school, only 6 were enrolled. Only 6 out of 10. Yet in 1958, out of every 10 children who could have been enrolled at primary schools, as many as 8.5 were enrolled. 60 per cent of the children were enrolled at schools in 1950, 84 per cent were enrolled in 1958. So, 9 per cent of the colony’s expenditure educated 60 per cent of the children ten years ago, whereas it takes only 11.7 per cent of the total expenditure to educate 84 per cent of the children in 1958.

Underlying this expansion of educational facilities since 1950 is the implication that there has been economy in the Department so that Mauritius gets better value for money. Certainly, although education expenditure has risen in terms of rupees, it has not by any means soared as much as could have been expected, given the steep rise in numbers of pupils, etc.

Labour first sat in the Legislative Council as a political force in 1948, but it was not until the 1953 elections that Labour was a decisive force. Even, then, of course, the Governor’s action in making 12 anti-Labour nominees vitiated the electorate’s wishes and prevented the Labour Party from governing the island as a majority of the voters had wished. So, it is perhaps pertinent to examine the rate of educational development over the years. I will examine only the number of primary schools and pupils since it is the primary schools which are, to all intents and purposes, the People’s Schools in Mauritius to-day. (Despite some inroads made since 1953 by the Labour Government, money and class privilege still rule the roost where secondary education is concerned). The following table shows, for each year from 1947 to 1958, the number of primary schools, primary school teachers, and primary school pupils in Mauritius and Rodrigues put together; the sources are the Yearbook of Statistics and the annual reports of the Education Department.

Year                Schools          Teachers      Pupils

1947               132                 1,269              45,188

1948               135                 1,241              45,157

1949               138                 1,442              50,559

1950               140                 1,411              55,283

1951               143                 1,668              58,819

1952               145                 1,808              62,959

1953               148                 1,847              70,754

1954               152                 1,950              71,072

1955               155                 1,879              73.510

1956               163                 2,330              74,288

1957               175                 2,602              88,477

1958               183                 2,630              100,551

It will readily be seen that between 1947 and 1953 (when Labour won the majority of elected seats), only 16 new schools were built. Six years, 16 new schools; not even three a year on average. But from 1953 to 1958, five years of an elected Labour majority in Council, we had no less than 35 new schools — an average of seven a year, well over twice the average for the previous six years. Why, in the two years 1955 to 1957, more new schools were provided (20 altogether) than in the whole of the six years 1947-53!

From 1953 to 1958 the most striking expansion of primary school facilities has taken place: 35 new schools; 783 additional teachers: 29,797 more pupils; and in 1956 alone, 384 new classrooms were added to existing schools (the equivalent of 38 new schools, in fact).

All this terrific expansion, unprecedented in the history of Mauritius, was in accordance with the Labour Party’s programme announced in its 1953 election manifesto: extirper l’analphabétisme, c’est-à dire un plan pour enseigner à lire et à écrire à ceux qui ne peuvent encore le faire et construire de nouvelles écoles et apporter des améliorations aux bâtiments scolaires existants.

In accordance with the first part of this election programme (extirper l’analphabétisme), grants have also been made to voluntary bodies to enable mass adult literacy campaigns to be undertaken; adults choosing to become literate in English, French, Hindi or Urdu. But of course, it is in the schools that illiteracy can best be combated. The Labour Party has lived up to its election promises in the field of education; the factual survey I have given above, and the figures I have quoted from official sources showing the extent of the expansion of education (an extent that is not often realised; an extent that is all too often denigrated and cried down by the traducers of the Labour Party) will serve admirably to rebut the false propaganda of those persons of ill-will whose only aim in life is to decry the achievements of the Labour Party and the Labour-dominated Legislative Council in order to clamber back to power themselves.

But when we see how the Labour Party lives up to its promises, and how it provides for the education of the workers’ children, we cannot but reflect on the poverty of the provision made for the education of the workers’ children in the days before the Labour Party:

The hope of the future of Mauritius lies with the Labour Party as the Government of the future. Let no one in his right mind try to contradict such a self-evident truth.

7th Year – No 313
Friday 26th August, 1960

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