?There are several teachers who have impressed me during my time as a student. First of all, I initially began my primary education at ?Henry Buswell School? in Rose-Hill. But I finished it in a school in Highlands, Phoenix. My parents decided to send me to this school because there was a teacher there with whom I was taking tuition. In other words, my parents decided to send me to this school just for the purpose of being taught by this teacher. His name was Chadien. My parents were convinced that he would help me get good results. He was a good teacher, very methodical and forceful.

After this, I went to Royal College Curepipe. Over there, I had some marvellous teachers who really inspired me in several subjects. Just to name a few, there was Thibault who was teaching Mathematics. There was Kervern who used to teach French. Then, there was Babajee who was teaching us English. As other teachers there were also Regis Fanchette, Raymond Chasles and Armand Maudave. Subsequently, I became the colleague of some of them when I was in Government.

But the one teacher who, for many reasons, impressed me the most was George Espitalier-Noël. I have so many good memories of that man as I appreciated him so much. He was our English literature teacher. He gave us a very special taste for English literature, so much so that we actually took pleasure in studying the likes of Shakespeare, Keats and so on. He was a young man, who had just come from University. Physically he was very tall and strapping, with a huge personality. He would always treat us as adults. One of the best things about George Espitalier-Noël was his way of explaining things. He was so good at it.

Luckily, George Espitalier-Noël was very flexible when it came to homework. In fact, he was not very rigid as some teachers are. As far as I remember, he never punished anyone in our class. George Espitalier-Noël was fond of the theatre. He was involved in quite a few plays, especially French plays. During some of his rehearsals, he would take us to watch him. He was incredible!

One of the things I will definitely never forget is that we had a large classroom when I was in HSC, and there was a table tennis table at the back of the class. We used to play during recreation time. Once, we decided to organise a tournament. Funnily enough, George Espitalier-Noël took part in the tournament. Furthermore, I even had to face him at a certain stage of the tournament. It was a great feeling for me to play against him, despite the fact that I lost the game.

Of course I also had negative experiences during my time as a student. But the only really bad memory I have is of my time in my Biology classes. I remember some of my class-mates were copying from me sometimes, and the teacher would give them more marks than me. I felt so bad about this that I stopped Biology afterwards. The teacher made me dislike the subject, whereas for me, a good teacher should make his pupil love the subject.

When I recall this time, I realise that George Espitalier-Noël along with the other teachers I mentioned before were teachers by vocation. When I look at the way they taught us, I must say that it was obvious that they were devoted to their work! George Espitalier-Noël played a major role in making me into the man I am today, just as the others mentioned earlier did."