The Education Debate

Opinion

By Paramanund Soobarah

Ms Nita Chicooree-Mercier’s article on Education last week highlights some important deficiencies in our education system. May I add a few observations of my own.

The over-riding aspect of our education is the poor quality of education dispensed by government-funded teaching institutions, and the consequential reliance of Mauritian parents on private tuition, usually dispensed by teachers of these same government-funded institutions. What seems to be lacking is a code of ethics for teachers, on the lines of the Hippocratic Oath. Far too often we hear the complaint that a child has been neglected in class because he or she does not attend the teacher’s private after-hour classes.

The national education policies of the country seem to be dictated by the views of the mainstream press. Their opinions and taunts must be set aside. They yet have to learn that not every Mauritian is like Raoul Rivet, Marcel Cabon or Pierre Renaud, Paul Domingue or Robert d’Unienville, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam or Sookdeo Bissoondoyal, that not every Frenchman is like Evariste Galois or Voltaire, not every Englishman is like Isaac Newton or William Shakespeare, not every American is like Benjamin Franklin or Ernest Hemingway, not every African is like Leopold Sedar Senghor or Nelson Mandela, and not every Indian is like Mahatma Gandhi or Srinivas Ramanajun (if they have heard of him). You can take a horse to water, but there is no point in trying to make him drink if he does not want to. Putting children of all abilities in the same teaching class is a waste of national resources – wasting the time of able children and wasting the efforts of the teachers. Some setting and streaming is a must.

Some Government policies may also be responsible. I have compiled the performance of our students at the Cambridge SC examinations in English, French and Mathematics for the years 2012 and 2023, grouping together those who have scored a Credit 4 or better. The results are set out in the table: ‘Performance of Mauritian students at Cambridge SC Exams’. In each of English and Maths there are two options: I have combined the data from the two options in both cases to get an overall picture. These results show some decline in performance in English (7.16%) and Mathematics (14.39%), but a whopping decline of 38.29% in French.

In my time (that’s sixty to seventy-five years ago), French used to be the easiest subject, and most students used to score “Very Good” in it, under the system of scoring then in force. Now it appears to have become the most difficult. This in my view a direct consequence of the introduction of the phonetic system of spelling introduced into our classes under the name of “Kreol”. All Hindu socio-cultural organizations had met at the Hindu Maha Sabha HQ and petitioned the government against the adoption of the system, calling for a French-based system. No attention was paid to our petition. It would seem that some people in positions of authority were dazzled by the information that the proposers of the system were specialists in phonetics (My God! What extraordinary people!). Little did they know that the science of phonetics was born in in India 3000 years ago and that the progenitors were Sanskrit scholars.

Even at this belated hour I would like to refer them to two books by western scholars: 1) “Phonetics in Ancient India” by W. Sidney Allen (OUP) – he has also written books for the general reader on Latin and Greek , and 2) “Modern Linguistics in Ancient India” by John J. Lowe, (CUP) – he is Associate Professor of Sanskrit at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford.

We also pointed out the shortcomings of the script – which may be good for the West Indies but which falls short of the expectations of the majority of Creole speakers in this country. The government is caught in a web of its own making.

On the question of the number of Credits for the right to sit for the Higher School Certificate, I think it should be up to the Examining Body to set the standards, and not the Government. Any citizen should have the right to sit for any exam if he or she meets the requirements of the Examining Body, including the payment of the fees for the purpose. This nonsense of the government paying the exam fees of all students should be done away with; it is another of the freebies dished out for vote-catching purposes. Indigent parents may be offered loans under some assistance scheme.

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About Pensions and Pensioners

Dr Vinaye Ancharaz’s Interview in last week’s MT was most instructive and interesting; so also, was the editorial “Audit and the Road ahead.” Even so, I would like to bring up one or two points which has been irking me for some time.
What used to be called “Old Age Pension” (OAP) is now being called “Basic Retirement Pension” (BRP). A large proportion of the recipients of this pension have never been in regular employment and/or have never “retired” from household work. I am not grudging the fact that they receive this assistance from the government, but under no circumstances can what they get be equated to the Pension that workers who contribute to a Pension Fund or a Savings Fund receive following their retirement or their temporary or permanent incapacitation.

The outgoing government was thoroughly confused about the purpose and management of the NPF and the NSF. They behaved as if these funds were their own money and could dispose of them as they liked. These funds belong to the workers who have contributed towards them, albeit with some assistance from their employers, and the government has absolutely no right to touch them. They should have been invested and managed as all pension Funds around the world are. Technically, the payments to the concerned pensioners should come out of the profits earned by the Fund and should not be a load on the taxpayer.Read More… Become a Subscriber

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 13 December 2024