The Cambridge SC Exams results 2025 and the State of Mauritian Education System

The overall picture is one of decline all the way. A serious effort is required from the authorities to reverse this trend

By Paramanund Soobarah

These observations are limited to the segment of the school cohort intent upon further study, as shown by their scores (Credit 4 or better). Furthermore, the data is restricted to the three subjects taken by every student regardless of their specialization in Science, Arts, or Economics: English, French, and Mathematics. To provide an overall view, the results of the two English papers have been combined, as have the two Mathematics papers.

The results are set out in four tables. Table 1 gives the overall picture for 2025; Table 2 shows the results broken down by the gender of the candidates. Table 3 sets out the results of 2024 and 2025 side by side for comparison purposes, and Table 4 shows the comparison with the results of the year 2012. The year 2012 must remain a base year for considering the ups and downs of our education system as it was the last year unaffected by populist ideas, such as “three credits are enough”, “Grafilarmoni” script for the Creole language, “one graduate per family”, “every child must pass”, etc.

Before diving into the study properly, one key feature of the overall results must be highlighted: the continued decline in the country’s student population. Compared to 2012, the drop in the total number of school candidates is massive, standing at 18.65%. There are signs, however, that this decline may be tapering off; compared to the previous year (2024), the decrease was only 1.66%. Regardless of this slight stabilisation, the trend remains a significant matter of concern for the authorities. A further point of concern is the ethnic breakdown of this decline — a subject that authorities often avoid, and which is looked down upon by a section of the press.

A further observation needs to be made about the performance of the educator body. With a decline in the school population, and no decline in the resources allotted (so far as we are aware), one would expect an improvement in performance. Such regrettably is not the case. Performance has instead been declining year after year.

Table 1 shows that roughly one quarter of our students did well in English and French, with performance in French being better than in English, and roughly one fifth did well in the mathematics. There is much room for improvement. At least one-third of our school population needs to reach this level of achievement in these three subjects, and at least two-thirds needs to be in the band of credits 1-6. Even as they are, the results show a great disparity in the performances of boys and girls, as is evident from Table 2. To begin with, the number of girls showing up for these papers is significantly higher than the corresponding number of boys – by about 16%. Proportionately, more than 30% of girls do well in English and French compared to less than 25% for boys. In Mathematics, the proportion is about the same – 21% for girls and 22% for boys.

The results in English Literature, French Literature and Additional Mathematics have not been examined. These are best studied in conjunction with HSC results in English, French and Mathematics at Principal Level after a gap of two years.

Table 3 compares the performances of the year 2025 with those of 2024. In 2025, performance in English is about 10% worse than in 2024, and in Mathematics about 7.5% worse. But performance in French has actually risen by about 5%. While this may give some room for hope, we must also remember that compared to the base year of 2012, the decline particularly in French is massive – all of 40%. This is shown by Table 4. The table also shows that the decline in performance compared to 2012 in English is about 6% and in Mathematics about 22%.

The overall picture is one of decline all the way. A serious effort is required from the authorities to reverse this trend.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 23 January 2026