Our school children are already feeling the psychological effect of the Gokhool reform. The private tuition industry is mushrooming all over the country again. Worried parents are doing their utmost to prevent their children from being affected by this cruel system brought about by the Gokhool reform. This is according to pedagogical experts, psychological warfare that could affect the health of our children in the long run.

Now that the cabinet has opted for the Gokhool reform, it is important for all parents and pupils to protest against this major injustice done to our educational system. We realize that minister Gokhool is only aiming at elitism in a discriminating way. By doing this, the minister of Education is marketing his reform only to those who can afford to buy elitism through expensive private tuition.

The minister never gave the slightest thought to what would be the future of those average, slow learners and late developers in underprivileged areas living from hand to mouth. This educational change would create two categories of parents and pupils : (1) those parents who can afford to buy education for their children through their means (2) those who can?t give their children the best type of education. So super star schools such as the QEC, Royal colleges, and MGI are reserved for some special elites coming from high or middle- class families. Elites from the working class or other poor families are always, as often is the case, exploited by the system.

Even in elitism we shall have two types : (1) the academic or natural elites and (2) the ?robot? or manufactured elites. The academic or natural elites would come from rich, middle-class and poor people whereas the ?robot? or manufactured elites would definitely come from rich families. So the choice to be admitted in the nine super star colleges had to come from the two types of elites.

How would the child face this hybrid educational change brought about by the Gokhool reform? First, the child loses his/her autonomy in a one track-learning model of the Obeegadoo reform, and then the child steps into the Gokhool system that deprives him/her of the creative process that could even kill his/her enthusiasm for learning. Is it not Tagore who once said : ?Education should be the mixture of producing the responsible citizen without sacrificing the natural man.?

Education in Mauritius has always been politicised and discriminative. This has a debilitating effect on the child that could render the latter egocentric and materialistic. Under the Gokhool reform, the private tuition industry will be back. Every year about 1,260 of A+ pupils would be selected for the nine prestigious national colleges. 22,000 others would be already affected by stress and robbed of their normal childhood lives due to extensive private tuition in non-ventilated garages. The rat race will be back and competition will be too stressful.

So the Gokhool reform will transform the value of our educational system into a true commercial platform where teachers are the ones to make money at the expense of worried parents and their children. This is what going to happen as the prime minister has already approved the Gokhool reform blindly.

Is that what Gokhool means by his so- called ?world-class education?? Let us hope someone, somewhere will call Gokhool?s bluff by filing a court case. Education is a very sensitive issue. It requires a general consensus of both the ruling and opposing parties as well as opinion leaders.

Ahmad MACKY