<B>By Santosh Kumar Mahadeo, </B> <I>former director of Curriculum, Ministry of Education

In the wake of the conference at the Mauritius Institute of Education, it is befitting to reflect on the importance of inclusive evaluation. Too often in education, our thoughts have the upper hand over practice. Our rhetoric has too often been about child-centred teaching when it is the teacher who imposes his style of learning. Curricula take time to change and by the time they do, new knowledge has revolutionized the world. A knowledge-based society, no doubt, imposes new teaching methods and new curricula. In curriculum reform, at times, the more we think we are changing, the more we repeat the past.

However, there are imponderable imperatives. No education is possible without a firm grasp of literacy and numeracy. The pity of it all is that many people believe they are newfangled sciences with a new knowledge of language development and computation skills. The real problem is occulted for we cannot ensure that every child leaves primary school with these foundation skills. If we want inclusive education, every child should be admitted to a secondary school only after having understood the fundamental skills.

We need to know what the child requires to fit into society. The knowledge will promote communication skills, computation, a sense of history, an awareness of the elements of sustainable development, an important grasp of science and technology, empathetic skills, creative and critical thinking skills, the ability to live in a group and work in teams. Classical education has severed the links of the individual from his roots. When you look at a Harvard and Oxford Graduate, you realize the monstrosities classical education can produce in the name of ?superior intelligence?. Globalization imposes a new dimension on education. Inclusive education will empower the learner for mobility. Our island states form a galaxy with islands cut off from one another like planets that will never meet. We need to continue a new concept of man with inter and intracultural sensibility. Curricular for learner?s empowerment must reflect his agenda for reforms.

<B>Better treatment for the pre-voc stream</B>

Inclusive education is a commitment to the view that access is not necessarily success. Mauritius has a lot to show in the domain of girls? education and their superiority over boys. But it is also important to understand that academic education in secondary schools is not meant for all. Technical and vocational education challenges both the cognitive and manipulative skills. Intelligent hands are more effective than intelligent minds, in the general sense of the term. The treatment we are meting out to the prevocational stream is a slur on our dignity as a caring nation. We seem to have extended the torture game to prolong the ignominy that has characterized their passage in education. Government must find the funds to implement the reform the minister wants to bring about in this sector.

Teaching and learning are key areas of intervention for inclusive education. We do not have child-centred pedagogy because it is the teacher who imposes his style. Teaching must find its origin in the learning style of the child. Does our teacher development programme awaken in teachers the ability to map the learner?s mind and design his pedagogy upon the way he learns? The MIE will have to rethink the delivery of its programme because the teacher trainer becomes a model for the teacher trained. How often have we not been bored to insensitivity by lectures? Learner?s empowerment is the result of a teaching strategy that aims at creating ?independent learners?. Mauritius, which prides over its "parallel school» of ?private tuition? should be the last to pontify on a pedagogy that unlocks the potential of the child towards making him become independent learner. We know HSC Students who take three tuitions for one subject. They are later recognized as ?laureates?. Our assessment strategies do not treat our education system as inclusive. CPE reports, every year, demonstrate that our children do not think, cannot create, learn by heart and cannot make sentences to carry intended meanings. Essays are stereotypes; imagination and creativity are totally absent.

This conference is a golden opportunity not for theorists for they are always in advance of practitioners. It should shake up our practitioners to salvage a system that needs to be relevant, meaningful and productive for children of different backgrounds and abilities.