Living in a well-designed environment : Generally, good design and planning can make an enormous difference to the quality of life of the young, of adults and the old alike and this is true at all levels: urban planning, building design, interior layout.

Did you know that a growing body of research has linked student achievement and behaviour to physical building conditions, space and overcrowding?

The environment of a given educational facility has a considerable effect on the daily activities of those using the facility. Students, teachers and staff recognize the effect the building has on them. Research has shown that the condition of a school building definitely affects student achievement and behaviour. Visual discrimination is learnt alongside language. The understanding of, and pleasure in the use of shape, colour, texture, space are not acquired by accident. Schools, therefore, need to be as well designed as any other building -or even better.

At the pre-primary level: In the 1950s and 1960s there was a strongly held view that young children should be at home with their mothers. At the end of the twentieth century the pendulum had swung, as more women started working and there were increasing demands for kindergartens. Many pre-primary schools in Mauritius started in converted residential houses or even garages, often led by pioneers who were really devoted to doing something good. Such buildings may not have met health and safety regulations and were unadventurous and limited. Today, there has been vast improvement. By comparison, in many European countries, local councils, architects and educators are collaborating to create nurseries of the highest architectural quality. By providing environments which are uplifting and exciting, these countries show commitment to the importance of children in the future well-being of society at large.

Tomorrow?s primary and secondary schools: The scene is familiar: a teacher stands at the front of a room. Children sit at their desks, arranged in lines and rows or semicircles. There is a chalkboard, a wall map and perhaps a globe. This could be a classroom in 2006 or 1906, or even in the England of 1806! Although the details may vary, school and classroom design has seen few changes in the past two hundred years.

What happens when you add a computer, a lab, a library? A workshop, a green corner and especially free-seating possibilities? Computer networking, video conferencing and new approaches to learning make traditional classroom configurations impractical. In tomorrow?s classrooms, students will no longer need to face a podium, teacher?s desk or writing board. Learning stations will be available, for individuals or groups.

What will these new schools look like? Schools in this century will provide a technologically rich environment. The futuristic classroom may resemble a television studio with two monitors, three cameras and related equipment. One of the monitors displays presentations broadcast within the school building itself, while the other displays students and teachers at other locations, anywhere in the world. The television cameras are directed at students and the teacher, or focus on visual aids used in teacher presentations. More than ever, school design will be modular. Rooms are added, divided or reconfigured as the curriculum changes and technologies evolve. Portable carts allow computers to move freely . Movable partitions permit teachers to shift from small to large group activities. And, with the coming of the end of the petrol-era, most modern schools will be solar-powered.

Another design feature that impacts student learning is acoustics. Because younger children learn language through hearing sounds, it is important that acoustics designs account for this need by designing spaces that will meet noise level standards. Could noise-levels at schools be one of the underlying reasons why so many of our students and adults speak so indistinctly?

Between the ages of 5 and 16 (the now compulsory schooling age in Mauritius), a student may spend 12,000 hours inside a school building. Hence, it is important that air quality in schools be good, since children are more severely affected by air pollution than adults, because of their narrow airways, more rapid rate of respiration, and the fact that they inhale more pollutants per pound of body weight.

A body of research has shown that buildings that incorporate features and attributes of preferred natural settings and nature stimuli can have a significant impact on human well-being and productivity.

The traditional quadrangle seems to have been retained in all the new SSS built as part of Obeegadoo?s reforms. We now need to go further, and evolve these Schools into modern learning environments. How? Certainly not by central command from IVTB house! One useful idea, which I shared with Minister Pillay at the time of his ?Action Plan?, is to copy the pattern used in BEC and some other private schools, i.e. give each SSS a Manager, an empowered Board of Governors, which includes PTA representatives and both the means and the freedom to innovate (instead of a lone Rector at the helm). A homage here to Henri Souchon, a long-time Manager of several RCA Primary Schools in the Port-Louis area: as soon as he took over an institution funds were raised, the staff-room and toilets redone, the walls decorated, the garden improved, classroom furniture renovated etc. I wish that all Managers had the same faith as he in providing ? uplifting and exciting environments? for children and indeed for all categories of professionals and workers.

<B>Michael Atchia

[email protected]</B>