“The paradox of Mauritius is that although all children can access education, a significant proportion of them cannot successfully remain in the system. Primary education fails 30 to 40% of all children every year.” The sad situation of Mauritian education could be summed up in these few lines. Education is supposed to be available for free but only a few children can say they are the winners in such a system.

The whole majority is left ignored by the system despite the many reforms successive governments have been testing over the past years. The "Mauritius report" done by African experts for the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) is just one more stone added to the edifice of criticisms of the education system in Mauritius.

The report points to several causes of failure in the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE): automatic promotion, low socio-economic status of parents, over-academic curriculum and the use of English as the medium of instruction are some of the scourges said to undermine primary education.

The authors of the report are aware that many other reports have already been published and that the authorities have stated they would try and change the situation on several occasions. But “evidence from the performance data of our candidates in the examinations at CPE, SC and HSC levels suggests that there are many children who are facing serious difficulties at school – sometimes they don’t seem to have mastered the basic skills. Such a situation has existed for several years and nothing has been done up to now to remedy this situation,” states the report.

Hence, each time a government comes to power, it starts everything all over again and takes only ad hoc decisions that will be reviewed in five years when another government takes up the work. There is a lack of an articulate and long-term action plan to try and effectively fight the problem at its roots.

<I>The authors of the report even recommended that the CPE exams be simply abolished. If such a competitive exam were to be eradicated, then the system would appear more equitable.</I>

The problem is that, despite apparent equality, the system is in fact one of inequities. As the report point out, “what matters, ultimately, is not just the volume of participation in education but more importantly (…) what people actually learn as a result of participating in the educational process. This, in turn, depends on the quality of education.” As a result, building more schools, employing more teachers or providing free education does not necessarily mean that education will be accessible to all. Equitable education means that all people engaged in the process are given equal consideration. “We must ensure a fair share of resources and opportunities for all people, not just those who are well placed to take advantage of what is offered.”

The whole system would have to be reviewed in order to obtain an equal and global-quality education system; the authors of the report even recommend that the CPE exams be simply abolished. If such a competitive exam were to be eradicated from the system, then the system would definitely appear more equitable and constructive for all children. Private tuition, considered to “significantly affect the dynamics of teaching and learning in schools”, would no longer be a predominant feature of Mauritian primary and secondary education or a priority for parents. The ADEA believes that tuition can lead to even more problems for teachers who are faced with “great disparities within classrooms” which they have great difficulty in tackling. Likewise the medium of instruction is castigated as English is a “foreign language for the majority of Mauritians”. “If it is not politically feasible to use Creole as the official medium of instruction, French – a close relative of Creole – is a preferable option to English, at least in the first three to four years of the primary grades,” the authors added.

Finally, the abolition of the CPE could bring major changes to a curriculum considered “too academic and class-centred”. The system actually ignores the main objective of education. "The goal of primary education is to develop the child’s potential in order to help young learners acquire not only knowledge but also the necessary skills, habits and values that help the smooth and effective adjustment of the child in a rapidly changing modern society," the report reminds us.

In other words, primary education should in no way promote "rote learning and drills" but should prepare children to reflect by themselves. As the system doesn’t go in that direction, it’s no surprise that secondary education brings along so many problems and that SC and HSC results are not up to expectations. With automatic promotion, children just pass through the system while problems continue to pile up as they get closer to the public exams of Forms V and VI…