Only two more days to go? The 27,000 pupils who sat for the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) last October will get their results on Thursday. While the director of the Mauritius Examinations Syndicate (MES), Lucien Finette, said just before the exams that he expected better results this year, it seems that the trend does not confirm his earlier hopes. But he makes it clear that ?it is necessary to wait for the final results before having a clear idea of the level?.

Pupils appear to have exactly the same problems as in previous years. ?According to the first reports, pupils still face difficulties in papers where they have to write on their own ? and not pick and choose given answers. They do have the knowledge required but they still have problems applying it,? said the MES director.

The results in subjects such as French, English or Mathematics may not be so bad because they are quite technical subjects where the questions are quite stereotyped and pupils can prepare for them. However, in History or Geography for instance, pupils have to compose their own answers and apply what they have learnt ? this may have caused them difficulty. ?Of course, the correction is adjusted according to the difficulty of each paper. For more difficult papers, the acceptation criteria were obviously wider,? he commented.

Lucien Finette however pointed out that, as an exam, the CPE leaves some room for chance. There are specific circumstances that may explain why a pupil did not give the best of him/herself on that particular day.

The difficulty may be due to one of the most serious problems of the education system. The competition is so high at the end of primary educa- tion that there is a rush to complete the curriculum.

Several reports pointed at the difficulty pupils have in applying their knowledge. Last year, the British Council issued a report on the English Language profiling report for Mauritius where it was clearly stated that ?the markedly higher results of the grammar and vocabulary tests indicate that throughout all schools Mauritian students possess a greater knowledge of the language structures and vocabulary of English than the ability to use this knowledge in communication?.

This difficulty may be due to one of the most serious problems of the education system. The competition is so high at the end of primary education that there is a rush to complete the curriculum. Hence there is little time left to teach pupils to learn for themselves and apply their knowledge. The main trend is towards rote learning.

However, the ministry of Education came forward with a document entitled ?Towards a quality curriculum ? strategy for reform? last year. The ultimate objective of this reform is the abolition of the CPE exams. Continuous assessment is to be introduced within the next three or four years if the document is implemented.

Beside the result slip itself, pupils will also receive the name of the college allocated to them by the MES. Although they gave their preferences before the exams, the final choice will depend on their results. Only those with 4 A+ (which means they obtained between 90 % and 100 % in four subjects) will have a place in one of the national colleges ? considered as the ones accommodating the elite.

But if the first reports prove to be true on Thursday, the MES director does not think there will be ?a very large number of pupils obtaining excellent results?. But he insists that he has had only temporary data so far and that he can?t give his opinion before obtaining the final results on Thursday morning.

If this proves to be true, the ministry of Education may face the same situation as last year where only 1,050 pupils obtained the 4 A+ needed to have a place in one of the national colleges at the beginning of the year. These colleges thus had to accept pupils with 3 A + and one A.

The results will be handed out to schools at 6 am on Thursday morning (except for Rodrigues heads who will be given theirs at 5.30 am). All pupils will then have to go to their schools with their parents between 9 am and 3 pm to get their result slips as well as the college that has been allocated to them in view of their results.

The Mauritius Examinations Syndicate (MES) is currently completing the last procedures before the issue of results. Now that all corrections have been completed and put in the central computer, the allocation of colleges is being done automatically. ?Someone is spending the day monitoring all this data to make sure everything takes place in a fair and equitable way for everyone,? said Lucien Finette.

Despite the problems the MES had to face with the School Certificate (SC) results quite recently, the director has made sure that the pressure is no higher than for previous years. ?All the measures and procedures were implemented and the monitoring committee for each exam was there to deal with any unforeseen circumstances,? he said.