I have been reading and trying to understand the current debate on making Kreol a subject in schools as well as the medium of instruction. I have only one simple suggestion to make ? look (and learn) before you leap ? and try to learn from the mistakes of other countries. I am from Malaysia and naturally, the example that comes to mind is from my country.

The Government there introduced Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of instruction in primary schools in 1977, when I was in ?first? ? now I hear that they are reverting to English as the medium of instruction because English is the international language of the world today. They have come to realize that kids do not know the scientific or mathematical terms in English for example!

But the difference between Malaysia and Mauritius is that in Mauritius everyone speaks kreol and most would speak it at home. In Malaysia, only the nationals, i.e. the Malays speak Bahasa Malaysia at home. For the others, their mother tongue is either English, Chinese or Tamil and most of us would need to take tuition in Bahasa Malaysia.

Bahasa Malaysia to Malaysians is what English is currently to most Mauritian students ? just the medium of instruction and the language of official communications. In Malaysian schools, English was just taught as another subject. But because we still continued to speak English at home, we were able to cope very well with studies and work abroad.

Please think hard about this ? all of you who are advocating Kreol as an official medium of instruction. As far as I know, despite the medium of instruction being English today, teachers do use Kreol to explain things to the kids ? which is fine. If this makes them understand better, I have no problems with this. But please don?t be tempted to take the easy way out now, just for the sake of getting good CPE results in Kreol (as is being argued today) and then suffer tomorrow when your kids go out to work in the real international world. Continuous exposure to only Kreol at home and at school will only make Mauritius even more insular than it already physically is!

An advocate for more English in schools