Most partners in the education sector must be relieved. The major changes promised by the Social Alliance during the campaign will not include the reversion to ranking in the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) examinations. It seems that the government intends to keep the standards set up by the former ministry of Education while improving the system to ensure a “world-class quality education.”

Education is certainly one of the fields which has been subject to major changes over recent years. The most important one was the abolition of the ranking method in the CPE exams and the adoption of grading for entrance to secondary schools. To ensure the end of the “rat race” – that children had to undergo to get a seat in a “good college” – the government converted the best Form I to VI colleges into Form VI colleges.

However, the minister of Education has made it clear. “It is out of the question to go back to ranking. We will keep the grading system while improving it and making it fairer.” Now that the issue is clear, the question is, how will they manage this? “We will soon propose measures on this issue,” the minister said.

In any case, the reversion of Form VI colleges to Form I to VI schools might not occur at the beginning of the next school year. The government is conscious that this move needs organisation and will surely demand some time. In fact, this new reform seems to have become a real headache for the government.

Grading and regionalisation

In fact, the ministry may want to avoid the situation of 1995 concerning the inclusion of oriental languages for the CPE exams. The Court had ruled that the six-month warning for the computation of oriental languages in the ranking was not long enough. The reform therefore had to wait another year to be implemented. This is probably why the ministry wants to take the necessary time to make sure its decision is not out-ruled by the court.

The details of the changes proposed remain quite vague for the moment – for the public as well as the government itself. The president of the Government Hindi Teachers’ Union (GHTU), Sutthydeo Tengur has said he has a solution on which everyone might agree and which could be legally acceptable. “If the government really wants to implement this measure in January 2006, it will have to keep grading and regionalisation as it is while converting Form VI colleges into Form I to VI. The latter would allocate their seats as any state college did in previous years. This is the only transition formula.”