EDUCATION reform in Mauritius continues to maintain its momentum. ZEP is now tipped to find its place in secondary education to address underachieving colleges. Nobody can question the determination to see progress in all our colleges but it is slightly worrying that the ZEP approach is being bulldozed into new areas without proper evaluation of its impact on primary education. Some will say that ZEP has not been properly implemented in the clustered schools yet. Its effects have not been assessed and clear outcomes have not been either identified or achieved.

So, why is this mad rush? Which train the Ministry of Education (MoE) is trying to catch? Is there a need for more haste less speed? Is the MoE worried that ZEP might get a bad name and die a quiet death? Has the MoE found ZEP as the ideal tool to implement educational policies? Could this transfer to secondary colleges replicate some of the unidentified undesirable outcomes? This paper argues for a more rational approach to proliferation of ZEP, an evaluative approach to educational development and challenges the MoE to chart a more evaluative route instead of political expediency.

ZEP Format

ZEP is a format of educational process which is best applied in small groups with a strong cooperative learning philosophy. It is not about recarpeting, refurbishing and interior decorating of classrooms. It is about reformatting the present Mauritian educational process which presently resides in the fast lane of memory improvement. The aim is to maximise the role of the learner, reduce teacher dominance, and increase conceptual learning and reflective reasoning while maintaining a practical level of memory work. This is what ZEP should be about.

The strange phenomenon so far is that the MOE has not talked about or addressed the size of the class. If the MoE is genuinely sincere about ZEP, the first conference should have been on the number of students that can be reasonably managed under the ZEP format. This is the fundamental and deep-seated criterion for ZEP to be effective. As far as the public is concerned, this debate on the size of the class has not happened. The size of the ZEP cluster class remains larger than it should be.

The planned educational activities should be matched with the appropriate size of the class otherwise ZEP will have no value. So where is ZEP at the moment? Rumour has it that it is only at cosmetic level, more decorative rather than fundamental reformatting of educational approaches. How far has the ordinary parent been facilitated into ZEP? It is admitted that a start has been made but nothing substantial has been advanced in the role of the parent within the educational process.

The level of the present evaluation is superficial at its best. The degree of feedback from teachers, students and parents must be merely the result of the Hawthorn effect. When something is new it attracts enthusiasm and momentum especially where teachers, clustered schools and head teachers are financially rewarded for implementing a scheme. If you get carried away with the impression that this enthusiasm is the permanent effect of a newly implemented format, then the mistake could not be costlier.

Clearly, the ZEP format must be put under a more powerful microscope and its various strands evaluated individually to have a more illuminative picture of how ZEP is doing. Further, this illuminative evaluation must be done by an independent agency not by the stakeholders themselves. It must have rigour, transparency and academic credibility. Evaluation is not the game for self-appreciation mutual society of curriculum developers.

The game must be played cautiously and fairly. This proposed quick jump to secondary education reminds me of a story of a man walking into a Western saloon and was amazed to see a dog sitting at a table playing poker with three men. ?Can that dog really read cards?? he asked. ?Yeah, but he ain?t much of a player,? said one of the men. ?Whenever he gets a good hand he wags his tail.? It seems the MoE is wagging its tail too soon.

Evaluative Posture

ZEP is what is usually identified in the world of education as a High Stake Project (HSP). This typically means (1) a significantly greater amount of resources and (2) superior educational know-how are invested in the project to raise standards. In theory this is a sound principle as increased resources bring an expectation of better level of education. However, in many schools in the UK increased resources have not brought higher standards. It is not resources but the ways the resources are used that bring better standards. Thus, educational management is far more important than mere resources. The main tools for better and higher standards are educational methods that connect knowledge and skills with the experiences of the students. That is why an evaluative approach to resource use is critical. Pouring money in, fitting new carpets and even having a lavish library may not bring higher level of education if the core educational approaches are not scrutinised, evaluated and refreshed.

It has been argued in the past that education reform is a national effort and needs the input of the whole country. In order to involve the national stakeholders like students, parents, teachers and industries, we need spirited national debates on HSP and a continuous assessment of ZEP. The fundamental ethos must be an evaluative posture that asks critical and incisive questions about ZEP?s implementation and on-going achievements. If this evaluative stance and attitude is not adopted from the beginning of the HSP, then the risks are high. The MoE may end up wasting vast amount of resources and students bearing educational and psychological scars for the rest of their lives. The constant and regular question which must be asked obsessively is ?Is HSP achieving higher educational outcome ?? If the MoE is not asking this question yet, it should appoint a group of education researchers without delay to evaluate ZEP as it continues to unfold. This will provide regular substantive data for further development of the ZEP concept, give feedback to policy makers, encourage fine tuning of ZEP and maintain the momentum. Above all, this approach will serve the immediate and long term needs of the students and guard against political convenience.

So, why am I arguing for an evaluative approach to the various strands that make up ZEP? As an educationalist, I make a pragmatic distinction between education and training. Training is a focal activity for development of skills including cognitive skills whereas education characterises thinking where students are occupied in cognitive activity that is more challenging than the capacity to utilize skills. Education develops conceptual gymnasts, elucidates a road map to make a conceptual leap and guides students to become self-directing, creative and ingenious citizens. Society needs both inspired doers and thinkers. What is ZEP trying to produce? Where is the main emphasis of ZEP? What are the indicators used by the MoE (and their effectiveness) to determine academic achievement? What are the education methods and processes the MoE education advisers recommending to teachers? On what aspect the majority of resources are focussing? Could ZEP create more of a ?training effect? than education? HSP can go fundamentally askew. Unexpected outcomes are common in projects such as ZEP and if not monitored, the outcomes can be very different to what was originally planned. If both education and training are intended outcomes of ZEP, then how are the MoE advisers instituting standards to homogenize and improve curricula within the clustered schools? What accountability measures are in situ for outdoor activities? Which learning domains are the key targets of ZEP? Is there a disproportionate impact on students from lower socioeconomic background? These are crucial questions and line of inquiry that should be rigorously and honestly pursued to make ZEP work. If the MoE evaluates and assesses the impact of the above questions on learning, it stands to be more responsive to the needs of the students, the teachers, the parents and generate new theories of education management within the Mauritian context. Thus, it is in everybody?s interest to relentlessly pursue an evaluative approach to the management of ZEP scheme.

Comparative Exercises

In order to take ZEP forward, there should be a thorough study of not only the education process but the sociology of ZEP education. The MoE must be committed to the formal comparative analysis of different substantive issues and social settings of the ZEP cluster. This will generate a broader vision of what ZEP is, how it should be modified and what aspects of education and/or training need adjustment. ZEP gives education researchers and innovators a real opportunity to compare and contrast fundamental similarities and differences between the pedagogy of ZEP cluster with that of the non ZEP schools. This might highlight why the ZEP cluster was failing initially. It will certainly thrust educationalists in the arena of the social construction and reproduction of knowledge in the Mauritian context. This is not only exciting educational research but a route to proper empirical, theoretical and programmatic statements for Mauritians by Mauritians.

The unique contribution of comparative exercises is the generation of analytic insight by the systematic and comparative inspection of diverse contexts. It prevents tunnel vision of HSP. The familiar (expected) and strange (unexpected) outcomes of ZEP could be exposed. In education, rendering the familiar strange and the strange familiar is the ultimate focal point for guided-discovery approaches. Thus, the benefits of an evaluative and comparative ideology are unlimited. Here is a prospect for triangulated collective sociological and educational imagination emerging from group experiences of the ZEP cluster. The real discovery of research is often exposing the ?hidden curriculum? which powers progress in students. This is the domain which must be rigorously worked at to discover the elements which help and facilitate the students achieve and develop.

The Future: Evaluation of Teaching Methods

Teaching methods are the key to facilitating student development in the ZEP format. The future depends on the creativity of teachers to use various group and individual teaching approaches to help the students especially in the ZEP scheme which targets low-achievers. Today, classrooms are filled with children from an increasing variety of social and economic backgrounds. As part of a national push for citizens who can think, solve problems, work with others, and learn on the job, educationalists are taking a close look at the implications of using whole-group and ability-group instruction exclusively. Teachers are discovering that informally grouping and regrouping students in a variety of ways throughout the school day can make a teacher?s job easier and students more productive. This teaching strategy is called flexible grouping which can help the students in the ZEP cluster.

Teachers who use flexible grouping strategies often employ several organizational patterns for instruction. Students are grouped and regrouped according to specific goals, activities, and individual needs. When making grouping decisions, the dynamics and advantages inherent in each type of group must be considered. Both teacher-led and student-led groups can contribute to learning.

Teacher-Led Groups

Teacher-led groups are the most common configuration used in classrooms today. They include whole-class, small group, and individual instruction. In general, communication paths in teacher-led groups are almost exclusively between teacher and student. Teacher-led groups are an effective and efficient way of introducing material, summing-up the conclusions made by individual groups, meeting the common needs of a large or small group, and providing individual attention or instruction.

- Whole-Class Instruction. Whole-class instruction is often used to introduce new materials and strategies to the entire class. Working with the whole class to introduce new concepts can build common experiences and provide a shared basis for further exploration, problem solving, and skill development. Whole-class instruction also can help identify students? prior knowledge and experiences that will affect new knowledge acquisition.

- Small-Group Instruction. Small-group instruction is familiar to most teachers; it is an often-used strategy. Small groups can provide opportunities for working with students who have common needs, such as reinforcement or enrichment.

- Students Working Alone in Teacher-Directed Activities. Although learning to work cooperatively constitutes an important educational goal, students must also learn to work independently. Individual responses may prove especially helpful for students in refining their own thoughts. For example, after sharing strategies in small, student-led groups, each student might reflect on the group?s problem-solving methods and formulate a personal problem-solving strategy.

Student-Led Groups

Student-led groups can take many forms, but they all share a common feature ? students control the group dynamics and maintain a voice in setting the agenda for the group to follow. Student ? led groups provide opportunities for divergent thinking and encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning. One of the benefits of student-led groups is that they model ?real-life? adult situations in which people work together, not in isolation, to solve problems. Students working in groups learn to work with people from varying backgrounds and with different experiences, sharpening social skills and developing a sense of confidence in their own abilities. A variety of group types and a sampling of activities that may be appropriate for each are described below.

- Collaborative Groups. The essence of collaborative learning is the team spirit that motivates students to contribute to the learning of others on the team. Because team success depends on individual learning, members share ideas and reinterpret instructions to help each other. In this environment, students convey to one another the idea that learning is valuable and fun.

Students in collaborative-learning groups can make predictions or estimations about a problem, share ideas, or formulate questions. After working independently, group members might cooperate in composing either an oral solution or a written response. These groups prove particularly effective for open-ended problem-solving investigations. Collaborative groups come in all sizes and configurations, depending on the instructional goal to be achieved. Two strategies for using collaborative groups are described below.

Circle Sharing. In circle sharing, children sit in a large circle so that each student can see the rest. The leader (either the teacher or a selected student) presents an open-ended statement or problem, and each student in turn responds with his or her own conclusion. One student records each group member?s response in order. Students may ?pass? as their turn comes up, but they should have an answer ready when the circle is completed. As an alternative, students can pass a sheet of paper from one to the next. When the signal is given, the first group member writes down his or her idea for approaching the investigation. The paper then passes to the person on the left. This strategy is excellent for brainstorming divergent approaches to a problem.

Four Corners. Pose a question or problem with four parts, operations, or solving strategies. Have students select which of the four is their choice to work with. Have each child go to the corner of the classroom where that problem part is displayed. This is a quick way to get children who have similar interests together to do further problem solving.

- Performance-Based Groups. Sometimes groups of students with similar needs might benefit from additional support in the completion of a task. Unlike traditional ability groups, performance-based groups form for a short time and respond to the dynamic nature of learning. Performance-based groups are most effective when formed on the basis of a particular need rather than in response to predetermined performance levels. Performance-based groups provide a means for increasing students? access to a particular concept or skill. Suitable strategies for these groups include introducing language, using concrete models, playing a concept game for skill practice, or practicing strategies. Strategies for use with performance-based groups are listed below.

Group Study. Group study most often occurs after a session of whole-group instruction. After the main concept is discussed as a class, students get into small groups of two to four to complete a cooperative assignment that reinforces, expands on, or tests their knowledge. Groups can brainstorm ideas or complete various explorations or investigations.

Interview for Options. After working individually on an investigation, group members take turns interviewing each other to determine how each person approached the problem. After they have all had a chance to share their thinking, the group can summarize what they learned from the interviews. Use of graphic organizers or posters can be helpful.

Student Dyads, or Pairs. Grouping students in pairs often forms the basis for peer and cross-age programs. Various strategies for use with student pairs include the following:

Partner Turns. Students are paired before a whole-class presentation is made. As you make your presentation, give pairs a chance to share ideas, information, and plans or strategies for problem solving. This strategy provides a good way to quickly reinforce active listening and individual approaches to problem solving.

Think, Pair, and Share. After whole-class instruction, individuals think about what strategies they would use for approaching the investigation. Students should write down their ideas. After a time, pairs meet to share their ideas and strategies. This approach helps encourage divergent thinking and provides students with immediate feedback on their approaches to problem solving. As with any change, implementing flexible grouping requires a period of adjustment. But the results will be worth the effort!

Figure 1: Group Approaches for ZEP Cluster

Conclusion

ZEP is a new scheme and it must be evaluated before it is extended to secondary schools. There is an urgent need for teachers to become more flexible in using an assortment of group teaching technique if we are to produce citizens with sharpened reflective, critical and interpersonal faculties. This will only emerge if the MoE is committed to an evaluative approach to curriculum development which enables adjustment to the teaching programmes as ZEP unfolds. The MoE deserves praise for trying to help poor achievers in our schools but it must not run before it can walk.

Dr Taleb DURGAHEE