Compulsory Education and Comprehensive Schools

Mauritius Times – 60 Years

By Peter Ibbotson

Education has been compulsory in the UK for many years. Children must start school when they are 5 years old (unless their parents make adequate arrangements for their education elsewhere than at school), and once having started school, they must attend school until they are 15. (This school-leaving age was introduced in 1946 under the provisions of the 1944 Education Act — previously the upper limit of compulsory attendance at school had been 14). A report just published by a committee appointed by the Ministry of Education has advocated the raising of the school leaving age to 16 between 1966 and 1969. (This report is so important and will, I feel, be of such interest to Mauritians, that I intend to deal at length with it in later articles. It runs to over 500 pages, so that it will be readily appreciated that I need time to assimilate all of it.)

Yet in Mauritius there is as yet no provision for compulsory education, even at the primary stage. A few years ago, a report before the Legislative Council on school building spoke of compulsory primary education being a long-term project, to be implemented in stages. But there are now barely 10,000 children of primary school age in the whole of Mauritius who are not attending a government or Aided school. Of these, a number are doubtless attending private primary schools and a good proportion are too far away from existing’ schools to attend. It is time, therefore, I suggest, for the Education Ordinance to be amended to the effect that attendance at school at the primary stage — from the age of 5 to 12 — shall be compulsory.

With Sir Christopher Cox now in Mauritius, and his deputy Mr Houghton due to come in March with the Economic Commission, the time would appear to be ripe for the Minister of Education to press his colleagues to support him in asking for this piece of educational advance. Speaking to an audience largely composed of students at the Colonial Office last January, Mr Wilson said that the economic and social reforms being planned for Mauritius would, when put into effect, give Mauritius a standard of education surpassed only by the advanced countries of Europe, North America and Australia. I would suggest that the introduction of a modicum of compulsory attendance is a pre-requisite of such a high standard of education.

The Minister of Education is a man of breadth of vision as well as of real love for education. He saw in England recently just what great advances are being made in the field of secondary education with the new comprehensive schools being built in London, Bristol, and elsewhere. Such schools are the answer to Mauritius’ needs, too, in the field of secondary education. At present, secondary education in Mauritius is grammar school education, with an academic bias — this applies whether it is provided at Government or Aided secondary schools, or at the mushroom academies which largely batten on people’s credulity and exploit their right and proper desire to see their children get on in the world.

Also, there is a deficiency in secondary schools to serve the rural north and south of the island. The present secondary schools are confined to Port Louis and upper Plaines Wilhems; children from the north and south have either to travel long distances to and from school (with deleterious effects on scholastic performance) or to go without secondary education altogether.

This deficiency can be remedied by building more secondary schools, and by sitting them in the north and south of the island. That there are plenty of children whose abilities would fit them for secondary education is amply demonstrated by the last Standard VI examination, at which no less than 6,490 children reached the standard qualifying them to sit for the Junior Scholarship Examination! I will admit that not all these 6,490 would be capable of pursuing the course of studies at present provided in the existing secondary schools and leading to the GCE and School Certificate; but they would all be able to profit from one or other of the varied courses which would be provided at comprehensive schools, if these were to be established in Mauritius on the London pattern.

At the London comprehensive schools, there are academic courses leading to GCE at ordinary and advanced levels, technical courses leading to technical qualifications (e.g. National Certificates and City and Guilds), and courses for RSA examinations, as well as pre-nursing, domestic science, needle-work, and commercial courses for those who wish to pursue them. The big thing is this — by providing a wide variety of courses in the same school, academic as well as technical and non-academic, the term ‘secondary education’ is acquiring a significance wider than its old, traditional significance of academic education.

In the past, secondary education has tended in the public mind to be equated with academic education and the School Certificate. (We recall the little Gold Coast boy who wanted to go to a secondary school because “secondary schools teach Latin and Latin is the white man’s juju.”) But academic education is no longer the hallmark of secondary education. We must widen our horizons and cease to equate, as in the past we did equate, ‘secondary’ and ‘academic’. As long as we continue to provide academic and technical education in different schools, the public will continue to differentiate between them. If, however, we provide the different types of secondary education in the same type of school — comprehensive —, the distinction in the public mind between academic and non-academic education will first become blurred; and then disappear altogether.

I know that the Minister of Education is doing a lot of what today is commonly referred to as ‘re-thinking’ about the future of education in Mauritius. Comprehensive schools would go a long way to solve the educational difficulties that presently beset Mauritius, and in solving these they would help to further the social and economic development of the country, and to resolve some of the demographic problems that are so pressing. I feel sure that the Minister would welcome any support from readers of the Mauritius Times who desire to see such schools established in Mauritius; especially If such support were made vocal to Mr Houghton and his colleagues of the forthcoming Economic Commission. Mr Beejadhur has already achieved one great victory in his fight for educational justice for the Mauritian schoolchild; if he can get comprehensive schools established, he will have achieved another, and immeasurably greater, victory.

Since the future of Mauritius rests with the children of Mauritius, and since the children of any country are the country’s finest capital asset, it would be folly to waste 90 per cent of those children of that capital asset. But wasted they will be if the present educational system is changed, unless comprehensive schools are established. It is as simple as that.

6th Year – No 279
Friday 18^th December, 1959

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