Reform, the word plastered all over the front pages of weekend papers, is back with a vengeance, no pun intended. As in a tennis match, the present administration is now deciding where to send the ball and whether the Minister will score a point is debatable.

Two successive governments have made reform in education their main event; this shows to what extent the business of dispensing public education is crucial, as it should be in the life of a country. However, between changing things and getting them right, the difference can be quite profound. Both Education ministers, former and present, claim to have the best interests of Mauritian children at heart, and both want these kids to be given a world-class education. So far so good.

<B>Previous Reform</B>

The previous reform, in its main event act, cancelled ranking at the CPE level and replaced it with grading - the least of two evils, granted - with a dose of regionalization. Schools with the responsibility of churning out elites remained elitist institutions but instead of cherry picking our future leaders from CPE, we did it at the SC level - again, the least of two evils, true. We started building new schools, most of them ended up costing way more than budgeted, the country ended up saddled up with debts to be settled by our children. We created ZEP but the rate of failure kept increasing. We also created a Numeracy and Literacy program which, alas, never got off the ground. The number of 10-year olds who cannot read or write is abysmal. That was the extent of the reform.

First off, using the word ?reform? is a misnomer if it does nothing to change the curriculum and pedagogy in general. At best, Obeegadoo?s self-proclaimed reform was an improvement in school infrastructure and can hardly be qualified as reform. Was the curriculum the same between the time he took office and left it? The mainstay of any educational reform, curriculum and pedagogy, was left untouched when it should have been the first issue on the table. Perhaps an indication of how parents judged the reform can be found in the rise in enrolment of expensive private schools.

A concept Westerners, politicians and otherwise, go to great length to avoid, we, on the contrary, love it so much that it is uttered every time we talk about education reform. Why do we pay so much attention to elitism anyway? The argument put forth is simple. We need to train our best and brightest children so they can run the country when the current cohort of elitists fade away into senility or rot in a jail cell on graft charges, preferably the latter. If our present crop of elitist leaders came from the same system which is fundamentally unchanged up to now, we should therefore not expect much change ahead. In this respect, may God cast an extra eye on and be gentle with the future non-elitist children of Mauritius.

<B>Elitism</B>

Unlike the intolerable social elitism where preferential treatment is showered by virtue of birthright, intellectual elitism is acceptable. But, what is intolerable is the way we go about picking it. This is where both reforms get an F mark. And F is not for fabulous. The previous one shifted its choosing mechanism from CPE to SC, the current one has brought it back to CPE. In both cases, the end result is the same: we choose from a one-time sitting exam, a most unfair way for those with intellectual potential who, for many reasons, may not perform to the best of their abilities on one specific day. Recognizing intellectual skills requires that we level the playing field, bringing rich and poor children at par. Has anyone ever wondered why the majority of children attending the best schools are from middle/upper middle class families? Soon with CPE determining who gets which national colleges, we will see 10-year old children rushing to two-private-tuitions per subject, much in the same way HSC students are rat-racing right now. What children are learning in schools amount to nothing less than the art of competition, rather than collaboration, not unlike the present administration showing to the previous one in the form of ?nou ki mari?.

The present Minister of Education is ill-advised to act on emotion and should ignore rumors that BEC was behind the previous attempt at changing things. Instead, he should have gone one step further and done what his predecessor did not dare to do. Here are some suggestions, inter alia:

■ Cancel the CPE for the love of the children of Mauritius and give them back their childhood

■ Start identifying gifted children through a series of cognitive tests over a period of time

■ Criminalize private tuition to level the playing field between rich and poor

■ Start special classes for children with learning difficulties

■ Initiate a comprehensive review of the curriculum and herald in a holistic approach to education rather than instruction by rote learning

■ Train the teachers how to teach and give them the tools to perform their jobs

But he need not listen to me. There is fairer way. Call a referendum and ask Mauritians which system they want their offspring to be educated in. And please, those who have opted for non-public education should abstain, for they will not be affected by the results, either way!

<B>Saoud Baccus, Ph.D.

[email protected]</B>