The Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) failure has always been a major cause of concern for policymakers. 22% of any cohort of Mauritian children entering school fail to obtain the CPE. Efforts have been made to provide prevocational training to CPE failures.

PVE curriculum materials (Years I-III) have been formulated to ensure the education of CPE failures, aged l2-14 years. The PVE project aims at remedying the situation by placing CPE failures within the same institution as their successful counterparts. After three years, they follow a bridging module (NTC Foundation Course) that will allow them to follow vocational courses at NTC Level III by the IVTB.

Drawing upon the findings of researchers (Rychen & Salganik, 2003; Perrenoud, 2001) and international organisations (IBE, UNESCO, OECD), lifelong learning and competence or skill development are key notions in international efforts to meet demands and challenges of a globalised, rapidly changing and complex world to promote sustainable development. The PVE curriculum would thus be translated into a selection of competencies, based upon the DeSeCo (Definition and Selection of Competencies) program. A competence is a combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to perform a complex task/activity/function in a given context. Basing ourselves upon the DeSeCo program, it is essential to identify the key competencies for our country. There are 3 categories of key competencies:

(i) Interacting in socially heterogeneous groups

The focus is: interaction with the different other,living in multicultural/pluralistic societies and dealing with diversity. Empathy is an important prerequisite, creating social capital

The key competencies would be: the ability to relate well to others, cooperate, work in teams, manage and resolve conflicts

(ii) Acting autonomously

The focus is: personal identity/relative autonomy, building a sense of self, exercise rights and take responsibility, awareness of one?s environment, understanding of how one fits into it

The key competencies would be: the ability to act within the big picture / larger context, form and conduct personal projects / life plans, defend / assert rights, interests, limits

(iii) Using tools interactively

The key competencies would be: the ability to use language, symbols, and texts interactively, use knowledge and information interactively, use (new) technology interactively

More than just programs, content listings and activities, a curriculum is the development of ways of thinking, perceiving the world and living. The linguistic dimension is central to its implementation. In spite of the ministry of Education?s ?prudent? policy regarding the use of the mother tongue, the latter cannot be ignored. A curriculum has implications upon the individual?s preparation for society, for assuming domineering or submissive positions, for taking critical or alienated positions about reality, for fully or partially living his citizenship. The PVE experience has demonstrated that most students come from economically disadvantaged groups, with their own cultural references. In most cases, integration (or inclusive education) has failed in most schools due to lack of cultural critique skills by teachers and heads of schools.

A PVE curriculum must not work with knowledge alone, but also with culture, identity, and subjectivity. To design curricula is deciding on the knowledge to be considered, valued, and transmitted by school. It is also deciding on the creation of excluded groups and cultures denied by school. A multi-stranded approach combining emphasis on educational empowerment and inculturated pedagogy should be envisaged instead of limiting our vision to vocational training! An anthropological perspective would force the curriculum to compromise with quality teaching, openness and respect for diversity.

A new PVE curriculum should give schools and zones academic freedom to customize the curriculum, with obviously a monitoring and coordinating mechanism by the ministry. The latter could support a community of curriculum practitioners, providing space for collective thinking and action. The community can be a place where specialists can exchange, cooperate, get insights and responses to daily inquiries about curriculum management. It would become a niche for cross-fertilization of professional thought.

The revamping of the curriculum would involve new learning areas and the need to articulate the contents in different contexts. Special training programs would have to be designed for curriculum developers and resource centres. Teachers would have a crucial role to play in reducing the gap between the official and the taught curriculum. The teacher becomes a facilitator with the development of student-centred strategies.

Teachers would have to be trained in differentiated pedagogy because of the heterogeneous academic and non-academic profiles of the students. The stress and responsibility for learning would be shifted from the student to teaching procedures. It is not for the student to adapt his way of learning to the pace of the class, but rather for the pace and the dynamics of the class to allow every student?s participation and learning.

In fact, the identification and selection of key competencies imply alternative methodologies (self-assessment, portfolio, observation, project work) and reconciling examinations with competence-based assessment. In the context of ongoing expansion of secondary education (education for all), many countries are considering the means to certify the knowledge, skills and competencies acquired whenever students leave schooling after the compulsory age of 16. During a seminar on assessment and certification for the Indian Ocean, in May 2005, the then MOESR presented a National Assessment Framework. Under this project, prospective PVE students would be provided with a statement of attainment, which would be more meaningful to the holder and to employers.

Poor visibility of outcome might have undermined the PVE project. It would now be advisable to adopt an inquiring attitude into the systemic consequences of our actions. The pedagogical specificity of the PVE project necessitates a reconfiguring of the system. It is essential to ?think out of the box?.

<B>Jimmy Harmon ([email protected] ) </B> Project manager (Prevocational education) at MOE from Nov 2004 - Nov 2005.