As a by-product of an elite state school for girls, who finished among the top students of her country 12 years ago, I could not help commenting on Sir Maurice Rault?s remarks in your Apartés regarding the value of an elitist educational system and the so-called ?brightness? of past laureates and current ones. I share Sir Rault?s concerns about the level of our students? performance in an Obeegadoo?s post-reform world. Competition is the key to eliciting the best out of yourself and exploiting your potential to its fullest. However, elitism à la bourse d?Angleterre on its own does not produce great thinkers or great benevolent leaders.

What a democracy really needs, and one does not need to be a laureate or the very top among a minority with an access to an institutionalised education, to be a thinker. A democracy dominated by an elite is oxymoronic to the very concept of a democracy which is to give consideration to the voices of all and be based on the equality and the free will of men; nor does it, on its own, produce men and women of character, integrity and high-mindedness, tomorrow?s ideal-minded leaders free from the repulsive tentacles of religious bigotry, that have always been sadly lacking amidst both our political class and our elite.

The despicable ?en bloc? reaction of the intellectuals of a certain community in response to Tengur?s legal victory is itself an indication of our common lack of intellectual maturity ? why isn?t anyone advocating for the Church to go without State support to conform to the secular principles of our democracy? This country needs strong symbols of secularism and it is a shame that Tengur is targeting only the church; other so-called Confessional Colleges need to go without State money as well) (...).

Yes, a country needs an elite to lead but an effective democracy needs a mass of proactive literate to keep check on the abuses of the elite. A mass of people who will be able to make rational choices and decisions when it comes to vote and will not fall sway to the manipulations of an elite. I am surprised that Sir Maurice thinks that increasing the number of scholarships ?n?est peut-être pas une mauvaise chose? Isn?t it obvious that it is a good thing? Does he think the size of the student population has remained unchanged over the years? Where does he think the pool of skilled people that we need to turn this country into a knowledge-based and service-based economy will come from? From an elite alone? (...) Where were those laureates of La Bourse d?Angleterre 60 to 50 years ago to vouch as patriots for our independence, to propose a democratization of the education process and free access to education to all ethnic communities, to speak up for the empowerment of the masses, those lawyers to engage in social activism? Or were they resolute in maintaining the status quo to protect the entrenched interests of their family enterprises!

One last thing : I am frightened and disappointed by the reactions of our so-called enlightened intellectual elders to the ruling of a certain Privy Council of late. When someone like Pierre Dinan, an economist, questions the priority of the Law over the Church (when there is a whole body of economic empirical evidence out there as to the importance of upholding the rule of law for development), and tries to blur lines between [léga-lité] and [légitimité] and compares the British legal system as an institution to the apartheid regime in South Africa, it makes me wonder as to whether in Mauritius, people are first Christians and second professionals in their field. Please let us put our religious prejudices aside and let us start thinking as true professional intellectuals !! Let us set the right examples for the young of this country.

<B>A B.</B>