Could ?Extended projects? (EP) help develop aptitudes in criticical thinking whose absence is so deplored in our education system? For years, the latter has been pinpointed as being too narrow-minded and outdated, but there might be a solution on its way to Mauritius to boost the personal, learning and thinking skills of our Higher School Certificate (HSC) students.

Introduced as an option alongside A-level subjects as from September 2008 in British schools by the British Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA), and by the Cambridge International Examinations Syndicate as from 2010, EP could concern Mauritian students in a near future.?We?ve already had discussions with Cambridge and we?re thinking about the possibility of introducing it here. It will take some time though, but it sure is an international trend?, explains Lucien Finette, director of the Mauritius Examinations? Syndicate (MES).

With EP, students will be asked to carry out a research project that can be submitted as a dissertation, a presentation of findings of an investigation, a performance or an artifact. In the QCA-version, students have to give a ten-minute presentation to teachers and their peers as well as answer questions. EP will be equivalent to half an A-level subject and will require up to 180 ?guided learning hours?, in which candidates are supervised by teachers and directed in their study.

Would its introduction in Mauritius help our schools get rid of rote learning, the eternal weak point of our education system? ?It could contribute to promote critical thinking and change the way things are done in the classroom, but it depends on how it will be implemented. Will EP be able to change students? working culture. I?m not sure?, states a pedagogue from the Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE).

But, adds that expert, it?s high time to dust off our good old HSC. ?It was primarily meant for those going to university. But now, even universities are evolving. Our present system is far too academic and disconnected from the real world.?

For many, the HSC is slowly becoming an inadequate proof of readiness for tertiary education. Experts have the same critics about the British system. ?One of the beauties if the EP is to pull the English system away from what has become an anachronistic preoccupation with a particular kind of examination that doesn?t really work. Other countries teach more broadly. I don?t think the way we proceed is defensible anymore?, thinks Niall Ferguson, a professor at Harvard University and senior research fellow at Jesus College, as reported in the Times Educational Supplement.

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