Alarm on EU educational systems: Europe is losing the education race; France and Germany are no longer great knowledge builders. Is the average Mauritian still convinced that Europe is ahead and always better than us, particularly in mattersof education and culture? Our government still prefers foreign (often European) experts to its own, however outstanding ours are!

While there is no doubt whatsoever as to the value of outside consultancies and expertise in this globalised world, our blind faith in everything European was recently jolted by the mistakes by Cambridge in the correction of HSC papers. A new report (Schleicher?s) will jolt this blind faith even further. Mauritius has known a number of reports on education, Frank Richard?s report, Ramphul?s, Glover?s as well as major reforms - Parsuramen?s, Pillay?s ActionPlan (unimplemented) and Obeegadoo?s - but they were all on government?s instructions or ministerial policy papers. By contrast, Schleicher?s is an independent study, compiled for the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based think-tank hence worth consideration in Europe and outside.

Schleicher praises Finland, Canada and Japan, as having the world?s most successful education systems. Finland?s success can, according to him, be attributed to the country?s shift from controlling the resources and content of education towards a focus on better outcomes, while establishing universal high standards. It has also abandoned uniformity in favour of embracing diversity and individualised learning and moved from a bureaucratic approach towards delegating responsibilities, from talking about equity to delivering equity. And to think generations of politicians have tried to standardise the remarkable diversity of secondary education institutions!

<B>Schools and universities </B>

The report highlights inequalities in access to learning as the biggest concern in the EU. «Europeans from difficult socio-economic backgrounds don?t receive the same educational opportunities as children from rich and middle-class families,» it states. The data suggests, in fact, that ?in many countries, European schools reinforce existing socio-economic inequities?.

Germany is singled out for dividing children between vocational and academic tracks from as young as 10 years old, children in white-collar families being four times more likely to go on to higher education. The report said that class distinctions -notably in Germany, France and Italy - make it much harder for poor European children to overcome their backgrounds and succeed.

By contrast, in the United States, similarly poor children have better chances of succeeding. ?Europeans from difficult socio-economic backgrounds don?t receive the same educational opportunities as children from rich and middle-class families.?

Dr Schleicher added that the same criticism holds true for Britain, which shows wide differences in the quality of education received by children from different backgrounds. ?In many countries, the data suggests that European schools reinforce existing socio-economic inequities.? A separate OECD study, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), is an international assessment and comparison of students? performances in OECD countries. France refuses even to publish PISA?s evidence on social inequality between schools, whereas Finland, the top performer in the PISA studies for the last two consecutive years, has less than 5% variation in student performance between schools.

The survey warns EU members to increase spending on schools and universities and tackle a crippling lack of social mobility within their societies, or put future economic growth in jeopardy. ?The time when Europe competed mostly with countries that offered low-skilled work at low wages has gone. Today, countries like China and India are starting to deliver high skills at low costs?, the report said. There is «no way» that Europe can stop rapidly developing countries from producing «wave after wave of highly skilled graduates.» Of the world?s top 20 universities, using the most widely cited index, only two (Oxford and Cambridge) are situated in Europe, the report notes.

It is not just down to extra funding, but universities should also become more flexible, and responsive to the needs of employers, it says. ?Countries that give individuals one additional year of education can boost productivity and raise economic output by three percent to six percent over time.? Britain has increased its numbers of university-level students markedly in recent years, but there is no data yet on whether the new students are receiving a quality education.

His survey points to spectacular growth in graduate numbers around the globe, not only in Asian nations such as China, Japan, and Korea, but in southern Europe, so that Britain?s own expansion in student numbers merely allows it to maintain its relative position in the league tables. Dr Schleicher said: ?The United Kingdom has seen a lot of progress, but you need to look at the extraordinary progress of countries like Korea and Finland which were not even on the education map a few years ago.? In the 1960s, South Korea had the same gross domestic product as Afghanistan. Today, 97 per cent of Koreans aged between 25 and 34 have received high-school education - the best performance of any leading industrialised nation. Schleicher claims that ?increased spending on education, particularly at secondary and tertiary school levels, brings economic benefits that outstrip inflation, not just for individuals but entire countries?.

In conclusion, some recommendations from the report:

• To turn Europe around, Schleicher makes these main recommendations: Europe must revolutionise its schools and universities and tackle class bias. ?Education in Europe cannot continue as a cottage industry, with practitioners working in isolation and building their practice on folk wisdom about what works.?

• EU countries must set up a network of diverse, high-quality institutions free to respond to demand and accountable for their results.

• The report supports both public and private (combined) funding of education.In the name of fairness, access to better schools has to be improved and opened to all, with public and private funding in support.

• Universities must evolve in a way that matches their strategies to those of modern enterprises; they must be governed by bodies other than just academic ones. ?Europe?s universities are unlikely to catch up unless our governments succeed in creating and maintaining a system of diverse, sustainable, and high-quality institutions with the freedom to respond to demand and the accountability for outcomes they produce.?

These recommendations should be looked into carefully for their relevance to our situation, built as it is on the English and French models.

<B>Dr. Michael ATCHIA

[email protected]</B>