The catholic education task force has finally decided on the drawing of lots to allocate the 50% reserved seats in catholic schools. Not all stakeholders agree with this solution but this is what the catholic authorities plan to present to the government at the end of the month. After the Privy Council declared that the allocation of the reserved seats on a religious criterion was illegal, the catholic authorities have been examining new ways of allocating their seats in a ?fair? manner.

It was the Bureau of Catholic Education (BCE) that made the proposal to the Task Force as it thinks this is the fairest way to do it. The proposal will be submitted for government approval. However, there is no real unanimity among catholic education stakeholders on the issue.

Many believe that a child?s future cannot be decided on a matter of chance only. Many teachers, for instance, are convinced that a child has to ?deserve? her or his seat in a college. The child must have a feeling of success and accomplishment in when entering a college. Many teachers think that this system is far from being pedagogically correct.

Lower aggregate

The only argument which cannot be used to fight this proposal is that it would favour one child over another. With the drawing of lots, every child will have an equal chance of being admitted into a catholic school. As this is precisely what the Privy Council blamed them for, the BEC has succeeded in finding the right formula to answer these expectations. That must be why they have chosen this solution.

In order to make its schools accessible to more children, the BCE could also ask for a lower aggregate. In other words, children with less than 20 as aggregate could be enrolled in catholic schools instead of the present 20-25. Many teachers are against this proposal too since they believe that this was not the initial orientation of catholic schools. They also argue that they have not had the relevant training for teaching mixed ability classes or low achievers.

Discussions and dissensions in education really seem to be never-ending. Now that the oriental language issue is settled, here is a new matter that revives passions. As long as the final aim is the interest of the Mauritian child and has nothing to do with some political gimmick, the debate can only be positive.