This government?s counter-reforms in the field of education are based on stupid assumptions. Supposedly, fierce competition at the level of CPE is necessary to produce an elite. However the government has not explained what it means by elite. This article challenges the assumption that the counter-reforms would produce an elite. It also proposes an alternative timing for entry into National Colleges to enhance competition while ensuring that education leads to true overall development and to a real elite. Finally it uncovers the machiavelism behind these reforms.

● <B>Victims of the system </B>

Every year, when the HSC and SC exams are published, we notice that hundreds of students who had won the CPE race and admitted to the star schools come out with average if not mediocre results while students who were ranked low in CPE overtake them. It is natural and even in horseracing at the Champ-de-Mars, the first hundred metres very rarely determine the winner. Indeed there are many more children with great potentials that just need to be uncovered but which are wasted forever. Unfortunately for many people, education means only a race in which they think the winner is determined at the start of the race, that is at the age of 10! These so-called ?educated? (meaning having diplomas & degrees) persons are either disappointed parents whose children ran the race or hopeful parents. They are both victims of the system. They are not able to use their intelligence to do critical thinking, to be open-minded and to be innovative when faced with a problem. It is not strange why superstition is so rampant and why our national competitiveness is on decline these days. Alas! Some of them become ministers! We are very far from elitism. And many people who haven't seen a dictionary recently are talking a lot about elitism.

● <B>A challenge to Gokhool </B>

In other countries, persons who contribute to the advancement of science, business and culture in general and those who enrich contemporary debates and discussions with their critical thinking and ideas are considered to be part of the social elite. There is also an academic elite made of bright university graduates who typically continue to shine in research. According to the Oxford dictionary, ?an Elite is a group of people considered to be superior in a particular society or organisation?, and ?Elitism is the belief that a society should be run by an elite?. Minister Gokhool and the serious institutions MIE and MES should do some research and thinking, if they are capable of that, in order to validate their stupid assumptions. They need to publicly answer to the following questions.

Which other countries have the same kind of competition as CPE with ranking? None!

Definition of the academic elite: do we mean children, aged 10 with A+ CPE rank? Does the minister, ex-Dean of Faculty of management of the University of Mauritius, want us to believe that individuals attain lifetime superiority at the age of 10? Shocking!

Do all the top 1 000 CPE students end up at the top of their HSC and university classes? This can be found simply by examining the ranks of the top 1 000 CPE student in, say, year 1980, and then examining their HSC and university results. This is possible, especially for the University of Mauritius.

Who are those considered being part of our social elite? A panel chosen by the Minister Gokhool should publish a list of, say, 500 Mauritians considered to be part of our social elite in different fields. Then the CPE or SC?HSC ranks or any academic achievements of these people should be examined. Should we also include our 60 honourable MPs in this list? It is up to him. The above steps would help us determine a correlation between the CPE ranks of our academic and social elite. It is a challenge to this government and to the council of morons who are backing this counter-reform. I also invite all the schools who have an Alumni Association (e.g RCC & St Esprit) to take up the challenge and to publish the correlation. Our mass media and private radios that are so keen in organising all kinds of competitions are also invited to join in this effort. This would be a fundamental effort to show further that:

Because the system produces a very selfish, bookish and narrow-minded academic elite, most of time, we have gained very little from our academic elite. For example, we have not heard our academic elite in this debate so far. Our social elite does not come from our academic elite.

● <B>Producing a real elite while ending the horse race </B>

The progress of man has never been determined by the abilities of 10 year old children. Just find out what were Einstein, Bill Gates, Gandhi, Dell or Mittal at the age of 10.

At the time most children take their CPE exams, most are growing rapidly, and among them there are average children, shooting stars and late bloomers. Very few of these shooting stars continue to shine long afterwards. The system of CPE ranking is based on the hope that these few shooting stars represent. As such, the system is an invalid selection of high-potential children simply because it is too early. It turns out to be a system of academic discrimination and stigmatisation for the majority of the children. What we need to do is to let the children grow normally, so that they could develop their creativity, personality and character to the most for an all-round and healthy development. For the moment our children barely have time for sports or even developing a habit for physical activities. It is not surprising that we are so unhealthy. Anyone who stays in India for some time is surprised to discover the number of hobbies and talents of the Indian students. There is no CPE exam there and yet they have a world-class elite in cutting-edge technologies. The best thing to do is to introduce a competition later only when children have reached their cruising speed of development in a national exam when they reach SC or at the end of Form III.

● <B>National colleges after Form III</B>

This solution was already available a long time ago. Indeed, in the late seventies there was a plan drawn by the World Bank whereby a number of State Secondary Schools (SSS) were built. According to the plan the SSS?s were supposed to receive all the students from the primary level and then there would have been a ?national examination? at the end of Form III. Those who would have passed the examination would have completed their SC & HSC in National Colleges dedicated for academic education and the remaining students would have been educated in technical/vocational subjects. That plan would have long ago eliminated the horse race while still producing a real elite who could have contributed far more to our national development. If the government really wanted to improve our education system it should have tackled the disease of private tuition which is a huge financial burden to most parents. At the least, the government should have made the taking of private tuition totally free. Only then the race would be fair! But this is very red politics.

● <B>Machiavelism </B>

A Labour government rejected the World Bank plan. Twenty-five years later, another Labour government is repeating the same massacre. It seems they really believe in some kind of elitism, not exactly as given earlier, but the problem is that they also believe that the elite should continue to come from a specific community and electorate. Their real motive is electoral clientelism. And the way they are proceeding by false promises and lies about ?social justice? mixed-up with right-wing concepts of superiority and elitism is a clear example of machiavelism.

<By Prakash MANI</B>