<B>By Pauline ETIENNE</B>

The arrogance of the authorities may have discouraged members of the public from showing their disagreement with ‘A+’ and the like. Despite the difference of opinion expressed against his reform in the months following its announcement, the minister of Education, Dharam Gokhool decided to turn a deaf ear to the proposals of pedagogues and opinion leaders. The reintroduction of the ranking system was claimed to be the best way for Mauritius to achieve a ‘world-class’ education - even though it would serve only a minority (should we remind ourselves that the government is supposed to cater for the needs of the majority?).

This time, an international institution is sending a wake-up call to the sector. The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) has published an overwhelmingly depressing report on the Mauritian education system in which the authors call into question the whole primary system… Will the call reach the shores of the ministry this time?

The report highlights several problems: private tuition, automatic promotion, medium of teaching and learning, academic bias of the curriculum. In fact, there is nothing new in this report. The criticisms are the same as the numerous reports commissioned by previous governments. The only difference is that, in view of the problems pinpointed in the report, the Gokhool reform could make the situation even worse.

We should not be too pessimistic. The minister has been at the head of the sector for a year and we could have given him the benefit of the doubt that he was doing his best if the report had not been so explicit. As they analysed the ‘grading’ system implemented in 2002, the authors found it softer than the one based on ‘ranking’. But they consider that "grading did not go far enough" to eliminate fierce competition.

Should we be clearer? Minister Gokhool is re-introducing one of the main reasons why 40% of candidates fail their Certificate of Primary Education. When the report was officially launched last week, the minister argued that the authors of it did not take the one-year period of the present government into account when they wrote it. The report comments that replacing ranking by grading was not in itself enough to eradicate competition - what then would its authors have said about the introduction of the A+ “reform” if they had been made aware of it?

I just suppose that it suits the present government very well to assume that the report covers the period from 2000 to 2005 as any government’s reputation would be seriously tarnished with comments from such a prestigious institution. The minister already had a few problems when he was asked to justify the return of elitism into the system; how could he face comments by the ADEA?

Faced with criticisms of the report, the minister did not comment on issues that could actually put him in a delicate situation. He only said: "We should definitely put a stop to automatic promotion." This would be a very positive decision to give a chance to each and every pupil to succeed in their primary education. We could only congratulate him if he were to go further with such a decision. But this would not be enough! It is high time for the minister of Education to question his decisions and measures and realise that many are against him…