The Ongoing Debate – Further Bits and Pieces

Education

Opinion

By Paramanund Soobarah

We are all celebrating the Laureate Season. Sincerest congratulations to all 48 of them. I cannot conceal my satisfaction that my own school (RCC) did so well, and I am equally happy that my other school, MGI Moka, where I studied Tamil for two years and Sanskrit for three in adult education classes, did as well as it did. Not to detract from the credit rightly deserved by the laureates, at that level of performance there is very little difference in ability between the laureates and the runners-up. My sincerest congratulations then also to them, the runners up. To them I also offer my heartfelt sympathies: You have not been labelled “Laureate” but you are not in any way worse than them. Only the foolish will think so.

Old people always hark back to their own times, and I am no exception. When I joined RCC in January 1947, all new entrants to the school were summoned to the hall where we were addressed by the Acting Rector, Mr André Glover, about the various parts and systems of the school and about what was expected of us newcomers. (Rector T. Barnes, an Englishman, was away on leave at the time; when he finally turned up later in the year, we found him an awesome figure, and also one that remained largely unintelligible to us – his English was awful, compared to Mr Glover’s, who was as clear as daylight.)

To come back to that memorable meeting in the hall, we were surprised to find a number of much older boys, some already sporting moustaches, in the last row. They were, we were informed later, the students of the Royal College in Port Louis who had completed their School Certificate, and had come to complete their Sixth Form at RCC. The fact was that in those days, only the RCC could run the Sixth Form (called “the English Scholarship” class) and produce laureates, of which there were only two – one for the classical side (Latin, Greek and that sort of stuff) and the other for what was still called the “Modern” side. There are more laureates today than there were students in both English scholarship classes combined. The St Joseph and St Esprit colleges were there, as also the Loreto Convent schools, but they could not produce laureates. By my time the Bhujoharry College in Port Louis and the New Eton College in Rose Hill had already established themselves. I have since watched the growth of our education – the initially slow development of private colleges. One small, personal, venture in Quatre Bornes was the Regent College, one of whose attendees was a boy from my own village (Palma) named Anerood Jugnauth.

The first developments in the number of laureates came when the special English Scholarship examinations were replaced by the Cambridge Higher School Certificate – a lowering of standards, according to many at the time. Private secondary schools were authorised to offer HSC classes, and one new laureateship were created for them. Thereafter private secondary schools mushroomed, and they jointly produced a laureate every year. Initially these laureates did not perform too well, but one, Sanjay Jawaheer of New Eton College, later Dr Jawaheer, came up with distinctions in all three main subjects. In 1976 the Labour Party under Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam introduced free secondary education for all and created the Private Secondary Schools Authority. The number of laureateships were also increased gradually to what it is today. The former English Scholarships were renamed the Sir Ramgoolam Seewoosagur Scholarships.

Beyond reminiscing about the past, I also looked at the MES statistics of SC and HSC results. I could not review the 2012 HSC data as an essential component was missing. I did follow up the SC2012/HSC2014 cohort, as well as the SC2022/HSC2024 cohort. One striking feature of these cohorts is the decline in the number of examinees: nearly 17,000 for SC2012 to just under 15,500 for SC2022. (They were down to only 12, 500 in 2024). This must be a matter for concern for the authorities. Concerning the number of HSC examinees, the decline was more pronounced: nearly 10,500 in 2014, but only 7,500 in 2024. But here the rule concerning the number of Credits required for access to the examination may have played its part. A detailed examination may reveal the precise effect of that rule. The number of passes have declined similarly, from nearly 8,000 in 2014 to nearly 6,000 in 2024.

Student employability

Cutting through the verbiage of official statements, the mission of the national education effort is to improve the culture of learners and enhance their employability, and also, to the extent possible, to instill the desire in students to start their own ventures, not only commercial but also technical. One issue that often dictates the choice of subjects to be studied is the student’s own view of what he is likely to be more successful in, regardless of its contribution towards his or her employability. The parent’s advice is also often more concerned about culture than employability.Read More… Become a Subscriber

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 14 February 2025