WHITE PAPER - Pre Primary Primary & Secondary Education

" Education is the key to creating a society, which is dynamic and productive, offering opportunity and fairness to all. Learning can unlock the treasure that lies within us all. A good education provides access to this country's rich and diverse culture, and to an understanding of its place in the world. It offers opportunities to gain insight into the best that has been thought and said and done "

"Reforms in Education must always be the product of collective wisdom because they have far reaching consequences for the individual and society.

"We have thought it proper that we should bring together in an outline document all the salient points which have featured so prominently in debates, discussions and reports on our education system. Similar papers on Vocational, and Tertiary Education will be published soon.

"What we have written is not a blue print for action but a summary paper that will serve as a guidepost to a comprehensive action plan by the end of the year and its subsequent implementation, once the founding principles of this paper meet with a measure of consensus.

"We sincerely hope that there will be informed reactions to our proposals to indicate to us the way forward."

Kadress R. Chedumbarum Pillay
Minister of Education and Human Resource Development

Our survival as a nation depends on how successfully we promote and implement policies designed to uphold democracy and the rule of law; how best we forge a national culture of solidarity and unity, individual freedom and responsibility.

Our economic prosperity depends on our capacity to create and preserve a comparative advantage over other nations seeking the same improvement in the conditions of living of their peoples. Whatever we choose to do, we have to do it better than others and more efficiently.

Our future depends on the knowledge, skills, versatility and educability of our people. Our hopes will become realities only within an integrated framework of education and human resource development designed to make of each Mauritian child a mature and responsible citizen able to resource fully his potential to make a positive contribution to himself and to society.

Too often development has been identified with the heights of new buildings, the new dual carriageways, the range of goods in the new supermarkets.

However, the day will come when, as a nation, we will be judged not only by our economic strength or the splendour of our hotels but by the level of health and education of our people, their right to a fair reward for their labour, their ability to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, the respect that they show for their civil and political liberties, the way they treat the less fortunate of our society and by the protection that is afforded to the growing minds and bodies of our children.

At the dawn of the Third Millennium, the world society is moving towards an information and knowledge-based global economic and cultural structure. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the learning curve is shortening and employers' preference is for open-minded workers adaptive to workplace culture, with a capacity for team work, displaying good interpersonal communication skills and responsive to demanding and ever-changing performance standards. Personality traits that exhibit a disposition for new knowledge and skills, and ability to use them efficiently and effectively, have pride of place.

Our mission is to inaugurate an education system that leads to the enrichment of the individual personality of our children by developing their full potentials and inculcating in them respect for others and for themselves. They need to appreciate and understand the time honoured living values to which humanity subscribes; understand and appreciate the culture and background of others. They need to exhibit, at an early age, the strength of personality, attitudes towards life and work such as flexibility, responsibility, leadership, determination, care and generosity that make them disciplined citizens of a free and democratic society.

They must be armed with knowledge that empowers them to think, to innovate and to be creative in face of change - to lead and manage change shall be the cornerstones of their success.

Education has always been a major preoccupation of the Mauritian population and successive Governments before and after Independence. Considerable investment of resources, both human and material, has been put into the Education sector and impressive progress has been achieved in terms of free, universal, compulsory primary education, free textbooks, free secondary education and a fairly wide range of higher education courses at the University of Mauritius, the MIE and the MGI.

Despite such progress, the system has not been reformed over the past decade to meet the exigencies of foreseeable changes in the country's development paradigm. The system which has served its purpose for many years and which has enabled us to manage successfully our first phase of industrialisation has now many limitations; it cannot provide increased access to secondary and tertiary education; it breeds inequalities which may seriously affect our social harmony.

There is a broad measure of agreement among all the key players in the field of education on certain features of our present system. Reports going back as far as the early 1980s have consistently brought into focus a number of prominent features. These features have been underpinned by the two workshops with Rectors of all secondary schools and Head-teachers of primary schools.

Mauritius happens to have a literacy rate that can be the envy of any developing country in the world.

Concern for education has been the main focus of government policy over decades. This has led to free education at all levels. It has also led to the provision of substantial budget funding yearly and the accumulation of a capital stock in terms of buildings and infrastructure running into billions. The system has generated an invaluable stock of human capital.

The failure rate across the system has reached a scale over the years that no nation with the ambition to play a significant role in the region can tolerate. It is true that over the last ten years, statistics of pass rates at CPE, SC and HSC examinations have recorded a rise. However, we must not be blind to the fact that dropouts before examinations and some measure of pre-selection by private secondary schools may hide the real situation. Furthermore, no proper analysis of grades, no categorisation of passes in relation to age brackets, nor class repetitions are taken into account. For those who have passed the 1996 CPE exams (65%), for example, God knows how many are functionally literate.

They are largely abused by their parents' over concern for diplomas and certificates, thus putting enormous pressure on young brains and probably setting them into undesirable attitude patterns as a result of a super competitive education system and a work environment that has no place for initiatives, adaptability and creativity but academic excellence.

The scramble for the so-called 'star' schools at CPE level and for scholarships at Higher School Certificate level encourage egotism rather than sharing. Students are known to keep their copybooks and books from fellow students. Real education is not meant to create such a mind set.

A type of encyclopaedic education practised in oversized classes promoting chalk and talk types of teacher-pupil relationship to the detriment of real class teacher leadership, character building, personality development, critical thinking and knowledge acquisition.

Had it not been for the dedication of a select group of teachers, standards would have been still lower. Widespread lack of interest in teaching as a profession is such that it no longer attracts the best talents, except for a small minority for whom teaching is a sacerdoce.

The heavily centralised education management system which fails to empower and build capacity at grassroot level where the main actors are Rectors, Head-teachers and the Teachers and which pays only residual attention to the role of parents and the community.

Inadequate attention has been paid to co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, Information Technology, remedial education, pastoral care and counselling, teacher training, education planning and research, and discipline at both primary and secondary levels.

Institutionalised private tuition is a direct offshoot of the rat race towards academic excellence. It would seem that stakeholders believe that diplomas, certificates and other distinctions like laureateships are the only hallmarks of a good education system. Private tuition unfortunately has been institutionalised and has become a destabilising feature. It is the source of lack of interest for class work, unruly conduct at school, outright truancy and induced absenteeism because of frustration and tiredness.

Our children are burdened with all kinds of textbooks, which in most cases are devoid of essential learning competencies. They are written to make money. It is now a fact that our kids are made to carry an unacceptable load that has a negative influence on their health. Many of them will suffer from backache in later life - Is this not a case of Child Abuse ?

In the absence of clear standards and targets in the context of a Quality Assurance and Performance Evaluation strategy, action to update curricula, the teaching-learning process and to address lack of success has been insignificant at secondary level.

At the private secondary school level, there is general demotivation among the teachers, managers and other key players with the whole system. The PSSA has had to operate without clear leadership and policy guidelines from the Ministry with the result that a sort of conflictual relationship prevails.

Many instances of sheer waste through duplication of courses exist between the IVTB and the Ministry of Education. There are also many disjoints between courses, and an obvious lack of a proper certification scheme for the various vocational/technical examinations

We are parents. Our kids have been through the Government Primary School system. We know the traumatic experience for having lived the discrimination and miseries of this dumping process. We know the toll our kids have paid. Those who have made it to the top, all the same, need to be warmly applauded for having successfully survived this ordeal. We can imagine how cruel the system is for those underprivileged who do not happen to live in the right catchment area, for having committed the sin, before their birth, to belong to a poor family.

If we need an example in our Education that so conspicuously epitomises all its major faults, the CPE stands out by far as the most prominent. The damage to our children and our society is perhaps irredeemable. Yet we live in blissful ignorance of the real systemic problems of failures, human and financial wastage, and we focus on the CPE as if it is the be-all and end-all of our endeavour.

The questions of Asian languages and the 50% reserved places have rendered the issue more problematic.

Out of 25,629 candidates in 1996, 16,737 passed all grades included. The functional literacy/numeracy of many is not known.

For the 8,892 who failed, only an aggregate of 2,400 have found their way to a Basic, Prevocational or technical school. Over SIX THOUSAND kids are left without a future.

A Labour Government brought free education. A Labour Government is determined to safeguard the interest of this growing generation.

Since early 1996, the various solutions that we thought could be applied met with different hurdles. The best brains of the country harnessed to find the magic touch have on many occasions had to contend with palliatives.

Over the past decade, the Ministry of Education and the Government have commissioned different Committees, both ministerial and technical. A recapitulation of their recommendations is in the TABLE.

None has come up with anything positively down the path to a solution. In some cases, the proposals implemented have made the problem more complex! The Ministry of Education has been embroiled in conflictual relations and legal disputes relating to admissions in Secondary Schools and has too often been trapped into lethargy.

The above issues must be examined in the broader context of the structural weaknesses of the system :

The results of the survey of school population around the country has been closely analysed. There is a great potential of additional places if proper education management planning is established and the co-operation of the population is obtained.

There is possibility of bigger Form I intake than planned in the new SSS to be operational in January 1998.

Basic Education is a fundamental human right which is the responsibility of the Government to provide. It is also the responsibility of Government to lead, shape educational priorities, gear the educational system to changing circumstances, constantly update teachingmethods and the learning-teaching process and curricula. The objective is to ensure maximum adaptability and enhance our children's capacity to relate positively to their environment, the community and society.

Each human being is genetically unique. No education system can pride itself of being equitable if it overrides the different potentials of each child. Genuine equality of opportunity can only be secured when the system provides for full recognition of the fact that our children differ in their perceptions, reactions and appreciation. There is therefore a basic contradiction between a cultural policy that aims to preserve our rich diversity of cultures and an education system which tries to cast everybody into a single mould.

When we have provided schools where children will have the opportunity to develop their potential and acquire knowledge and capacity that they can put to reasonable use and succeed, we will have prepared the ground for solving the problems of society. Children will not succeed in general until they have experienced some measure of success at some important stage of their life.

Success of schools depends primarily on the capacity of the system to spur our children to hard work and discipline, and motivate our teachers as well as on the availability of sound teaching methods, relevant curricula, modern management techniques with better quality assurance standards and targets.

Any education system that does not visit the mind, the soul and the body in a holistic manner with inputs from all those with an interest in the physical, moral and psychological development of the child, cannot be of service to humanity.

It is the experience of all successful societies that the foundation of a strong education superstructure is a compulsory schooling period that educates the child from 4-year old to 15. Those are the years of character development and personality formation.

Studies have shown that those in Mauritius who have left schools after the CPE without any access to secondary education have been the most exposed to the vagaries of social deprivation and their consequences.

Policies that are designed to achieve early success rather than later attempts to recover from failure have proved to be socially most cost effective. Better spend money now than spending more on the management of criminality, prisons and mental hospitals!

The main focus must be on aptitudes and achievements rather than selection; on continuous evaluation, remediation and pastoral care rather than end of year snapshot examination based on rigid curricula and out dated teaching-learning process. Stress must be put on numeracy, literacy and computer literacy as pillars of educational wisdom.

We have impressed the world community by the richness of our cultural diversity and by the strength of our social cohesion and harmony. This is no mean achievement because we know that the scope for dissension and conflict within a nation is as great as it is between nations. But we all know that the multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural society of ours places a permanent challenge on us to seek our bearing.

The liberalisation of the audio-visual landscape and the availability of global instant information bring in their wake a form of cultural neo-colonialism that may place great stress on our complex social fabric. How successful we are in checkmating the alien effect depends on our Education System.

We must not be blind to the havoc which the liberalisation process has caused in countries caught unprepared. Only an Education System based on quality and equity can prepare our society to this new threat.

Unfortunately, as it is, the System is grossly inequitable; it has major structural weaknesses, is covertly discriminating and nurtures frustration and failures.

In spite of the tremendous transformation in our society, the System has failed to revisit its fundamentals, which makes it totally irrelevant to the challenges we have to face.

A nine-year Basic Compulsory Education preceded by a year of pre-schooling and the allowance of an additional primary school year for a remediation and repeat class, based on a fairly flexible curriculum within a framework of continuous assessmsnt of performance, remediation, pastoral care and counselling.

We are not inventing anything. This has been the common denominator of a series of technical reports, some of which dating back to the mid 1970s when Sir Kher Jagatsingh was the Minister of Education.

The Cabinet has only recently endorsed the Vision 2020 document, which provides for a nine-year basic compulsory education. It has also subscribed to the SADC Protocol on Education and Training that also provides for 9-year basic education.

The recent Convention on Education, Training and the World of Work organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development and the Mauritius Employers Federation (MEF) has made recommendations on the same line.

In his keynote address, H.E. The President of the Republic made a strong plea in support of our concept. All developed countries have their Education System on similar lines.

Drastic curriculum reforms are needed with focus on languages, critical thinking, information technology, living values, health and physical education, vocational and technical education to make the child first a social and then an economic person. Education should be the bridge between these two concepts. Hence the integrating of education and human resource development to produce an adaptable, trainable and educable work force with the knowledge and skills required to fit in the knowledge society.

Pre-schools will continue to be built within our primary schools. Each school will be linked to a cluster of privately run kindergartens through an agreed curriculum based on the principles of early childhood development; the provision of pedagogical tools by the Ministry of Education will be a condition of such links.

The programme will focus on psychomotor and sensor-motor development, discovery of the child's environment, team spirit development, identification of forms, sounds and colours and early artistic revelations through Creative Arts and Living Skills on inclusive pedagogical principles. The curriculum will be light and flexible and shall never tire the child.

In their earliest years of life, children learn lessons that they will carry with them for life, such as to soothe themselves when they are upset, to empathise and to get along. These experiences can determine whether children grow up to be peaceful or violent citizens, to be focused or undisciplined workers, or to be attentive or detached parents themselves.

The "Education for Development" concept - which emphasises notions of solidarity, peace, tolerance, social justice and environmental awareness - has been mounted with the UNICEF with this end in view. It has created considerable interest in 75 schools and it will be extended to other schools.

Existing pre-primary schoolteachers have by and large made a positive contribution to the early childhood development. They must be taken on board in this new concept.

Primary schooling will be in principle of six year duration. Admission to school will be from the children coming from the pre-school classes and from other private pre-primary schools. We hope in the medium term that all our pupils into primary will come from our pre-schools and there will not be any problem of transition. Promotion will not be automatic up to Std IV.

The whole concept of primary schooling will be based on flexible curricula with a fairly wide range of subjects within a framework of continuous assessment of performance, remedial education, pastoral care and counselling; a further year will be allowed for repeat and remediation.

It is proposed that the following core subjects being taught namely, English, French, Mathematics and Basic Science and one elective subject from the following options: Asian languages, EVS (History & Geography), Creative Arts and Music; also non-examinable subjects such as Health and Physical Education, Computer Studies and Living Values will be taught.

The focus of primary schooling will be on Mathematics, the development of spoken and written communication skills, the ability to relate to one's physical and scientific environment, the development of the right human and spiritual attitudes and self understanding.

The Lower Secondary School follows directly from the completion of Primary schooling and covers a period of three years from Form I to Form III. It is designed to promote the general development of students at a most delicate time of their life by helping them to acquire knowledge, insight, skills and values; to prepare them to make the appropriate choice at Upper Secondary level and for an active adult life in the future.

Two streams will be offered : Academic and Vocational/ Technical. The Vocational/Technical will replace the existing Basic Secondary Schools. Since the Lower Secondary School is a new concept, it will pave the way for a smooth regionalisation from below in a logical manner. It is proposed to introduce an Integrated National Curriculum crowned by an Aptitude Testing Scheme.

Under the Aptitude Testing Scheme, students will be in a better position to decide for themselves - in consultation with their teachers and their parents - where their final interest lies.

They will then move to the Upper Secondary school level - Two years leading to School Certificate and two subsequent years to Higher School Certificate (the possibility of introducing some alternate examination system like the 'O' level, 'A' level and the GCSC is not excluded).

Additional subjects, such as Hinduism, Islamic Studies, Philosophy and Divinity will also be available. There may be a case for the Upper Secondary Schools to specialise in given fields.

School Management - It is our understanding that each locality in Mauritius has it own specificity. These quite often show in the classrooms. Head-teachers are the persons more equipped to appreciate these issues and to deal with them appropriately.

It is therefore important that the heads of schools enjoy a fair measure of authority and day-to-day independence in the management of their schools within clear policy guidelines and accountability parameters. They are expected to be supported in their duties by the School Board.

The proper management of schools is fundamental to the successful implementation of any educational strategy. The harm done to the system may take years to undo in case of negative diversion from the set objectives of teaching/learning.

School Boards - Experience has shown in different countries the benefits of the school board. The benefits have been very marked on education. School boards will be set up with membership drawn from among stakeholders. In this novel approach, the school board will have an important advisory role to play in the various operational matters.

School improvement teams - School improvement team, responsible to the school board, will be set up. Membership and function will be left to individual school board to decide. Overall, their functions will be to support the efforts of the school board to achieve high standards and efficient management of their school. Specifically, the school improvement team will support the school board in such matters as determining school priorities and developing short and medium term staff development plans and canvass the community and the local businessmen for support.

Staffing Policy - The School board will be allowed to advise the Regional Education Directorate (RED) and the Ministry on staffing policy. Broader issues of staffing policy will depend on the curriculum and other programmes that are to be implemented, within the overall context of the budget allocation for the school.

Approval of Leaves - Approval of leave will be left to the Head of School to implement in the light of leave regulations and the needs of the school at a particular time. Leave replacements for teachers on sick leave or on maternity leave, training courses, etc. will be dealt with by the school boards jointly with the Regional Education Directorate and the Ministry.

In-Service Training - In-Service training will be organised by the Head in co-operation with senior staff and drawing on resource persons made available by the region and the Ministry. Academic credit will be available for in-service training, so that a sequence of training units results in the individual teacher gaining a credit towards a certification offered by the MIE thus enhancing teacher response to in-service training.

Annual Budget - Head of School will be required to prepare an overall annual budget for the school within parameters laid down by the Ministry and take direct responsibility for expenditure in certain areas on matters such as repairs and maintenance of buildings and grounds, security, power, water and sewerage, equipment, school meals, excursions and transport.

Infrastructure development - School board will advise on the detailed infrastructure requirements of their school. Such involvement promotes a sense of community commitment in the education process.

Extra-curricular activities - As mentioned earlier, educational buildings are frequently a grossly under-utilised resource, occupied only during the day for a limited number of weeks in the year. School board will advise the Regional Education Directorate on how best their institutions could respond to the needs of their students and the local community. Further, it will decide and implement agreed programmes in response to local needs and priorities.

A School Curriculum Group will encourage small-scale action research by staff members, seeking information on educational issues of direct relevance to the school. School boards, in co-operation with the Regional Education Directorate, MIE and the Ministry and in conjunction with the Academy of Education (see below), will institute a small-scale Research Award Scheme, open to practising teachers and offering recognition of high quality work.

Peer coaching will supplement in-service training, through the appointment of senior teachers as mentors to recently-qualified staff, guiding them in their early years of teaching in matters of curriculum content, classroom practice and relationships with other staff, students, parents and the community.

A creative teaching-learning process will emerge if the school board and the senior staff demonstrate competence, support and enthusiasm for the life of the school. Staff cannot be required to be creative but they will respond to encouragement and assistance,particularly if innovation is seen as a challenge rather than a threat.

School Resource Centre - Information Technology is opening the way for every school to have access to a formidable range of resources. Interfacing with MCA, MIE and other bodies in Mauritius is but one step to interfacing with a range of sources world-wide. The task of the Head of School and the teaching staff will be to be selective so that the interfaces are of direct relevance and benefit.

Teachers - The role, capacity and status of teachers have to be revisited to attract the best talents and more qualified persons. Like in all professions, there are good teachers and those who have been attracted to the profession because they had nothing else to do. Unless immediate action is taken to raise morale and motivate the teachers towards higher aspirations, reforms will serve no purpose. Poor teaching has a debilitating effect on education standards.

A General Teaching Council and the Council draw will a Code of Ethics for teachers to restore greater professionalism and to make the Teaching Profession a respected one.

Private tuition is the direct result of the super competitive education system, the lack of a teacher development scheme, the inability of the conditions of service of teachers to attract the best talents, and the total absence of a quality assurance framework. Private tuition is not a new phenomenon for having been the subject of complaint right back to 1911 by Mr. W.A. Russell, Rector of the Royal College.

It would not be advisable to propose drastic solutions. It is our conviction that the problems posed by private tuition will be substantially addressed in the context of global educational reforms being proposed and the need for tuition will dissipate. It is our intention to see that private tuition does not have any raison d'être.

Language Policy is a very sensitive and very controversial issue; it arouses considerable passion and emotion. This is unfortunate - Language must always foster Unity, not the contrary. We will not do justice to our endeavour if we do not address the issue of a language policy as a matter of urgency in a honest and sincere way. There is need for a national consensus. It is proposed to update existing studies to establish whether we need some flexibility in our medium of instruction at classroom level; and to what extent our present approach to languages needs be revised to live up to our national aspirations.

Absenteeism during the weeks preceding examinations, especially for SC and HSC students, has reached a scale which no system of schooling can tolerate any further. Poor teaching, teachers' absence, some unscrupulous teachers, private tuition, and fierce competition have been identified as the main causal factors. Strong measures will be taken to phase out, in due time, those undesirable factors. At the same time, legislation will be introduced to make it mandatory for students to complete a set number of school days before being authorised to sit the examinations. Another deterrent may be the scaling down of their school performance.

Educational Administration - A new National Education Directorate with the Chief Technical Officer in charge will group the five existing Directors. It will advise the Minister on policy and implement decisions.

Responsibilities have been allocated to each Director for Pre Primary and Primary, Secondary and Vocational & Technical, and Tertiary Education respectively. The respective Director also has the duty to evolve strategies for Languages, Information Technology, Sciences and Mathematics. This replaces the hitherto fragmented approach with functions lost on the responsibility grid.

Each Director will become directly responsible and accountable for the performance of the sector under his control. He will particularly have to adopt a pro-active stance for the teaching-learning process, curriculum development, education research & planning and performance evaluation and quality assurance.

Six new Regional Education Directorates will interface between the Ministry and the school network and, in addition to their other functions, they will concentrate on the following as a matter of priority :

Textbook Division - As curricula develop and change, the choice of textbooks must vary so that working with outdated materials does not disadvantage the students. At the same time, textbooks represent a considerable investment and cannot be changed too frequently without a substantial effect on the school budget or costs to parents.

The task of the Head of school in this matter will be to contribute to the information accumulated by the Ministry to enable overall suggestions to be made to schools as to the most appropriate and economic textbooks that are likely to remain valid for the longest time.

The Division will vet the quality of textbooks meant for use in our schools before they are officially authorised. Consideration will be given to the essential learning competencies elements in proposed textbooks. Appropriate legislation will be introduced to that effect.

A Special Education Division being set up under the responsibility of a Director will take care of pupils with special needs. Those specialised schools like the School for the Blind, the School for the Deaf, the APEIM, SENS, HEAR, ENS and Lizie dans la Main have done a remarkable work on a voluntary basis. This Division will evolve a new strategy in full collaboration with all voluntary organisations to ensure more affirmative action.

In spite of the pride that we take in our high level of literacy, we have reason to believe that some 140,000 adults are functionally illiterate in Mauritius and Rodrigues. To enable a more pro-active and focused inter-sectorial action, a new Adult Literacy Unit will collaborate with Governmental and Non-Governmental Organisations to address the problem.

Special Needs Schools - The question of the under-achievement in many primary schools is a matter of serious concern - both from an education and social view point. We record here our appreciation of voluntary organisations like "Pere Laval", "Teen Hope" and other similar organisations for their audacity in taking up the challenge.

In spite of the action initiated last year to address the special requirements of Special Needs schools, more most be done in the field in terms of pastoral care, sociological support and new revised teaching-learning process. Anything short of vigorous action will be a betrayal.

We propose the creation of a Special Task Force pooling together retired inspectors, heads of schools, rectors, teachers and other volunteers to bring to the service of these schools the sum of experience they dispose. They will be provided with support services from sociologists and educational psychologists on a systematic basis.

General Administration - The Ministry of Education is at present physically spread out in at least ten different offices mainly in Port Louis. This is the source of considerable lack of cohesive and purposive action. We have decided to move into a central office in the IVTB new headquarters at Phoenix as from November 1997. This will make planning, co-ordination and control possible and effective.

For years, outstanding professionals of education have been entrusted with duties that not only do not do justice to them but do a disservice to Education. Their duties are now redefined. They will soon concentrate on teaching- learning process, curriculum development, setting of standards and guidelines, performance evaluation, training and inspection - the essence of their expertise.

The existing Project Implementation Unit at the Ministry of Education is being completely overhauled to benefit from inputs of professionals of the building construction sector. It will also take responsibility for maintenance work. Personnel Management has been a consistent source of frustration among the Education staff, particularly industrial relations and promotion and transfer policies. root cause has been the operation of such a large system manually. The system will be computerised.

To further the regionalisation process, various Personnel and Finance functions will be decentralised. This will ensure faster service to the regions and give more satisfaction to both the education staff and the public.

Budgeting in the field of Education is at present a very centralised operation. More autonomy will be allowed to the Regions and even to schools, in matters concerning Budget planning and control.

A Bureau of Standards and Academic Audit reporting directly to the Minister will be set up. It will have to identify poor teaching, poor teachers, irrelevant curricula, bad management, inadequate teaching-learning process and staff development needs.

A Regional Educational Improvement Plan will be prepared at the beginning of each year by the Regional Education Directorate and approved by the Minister. This plan will constitute the focal document to enable the Directorate to play its role fully on a permanent basis. The Directorate will have to develop protocols of good management practices and performance evaluation. It will be expected to evaluate and report on achievements within the context of the Regional Education Improvement Plan.

The right mix of pressure and control will have to be determined and permanently applied to ensure that performance targets and standards are achieved.

A modern Education service must be able to stretch the most able, support the slow learners and challenge all pupils.

Performance targets will be agreed in advance with the Rectors, Head-teachers and teachers and schools will be challenged to reach those targets

The formal education system operates against a background of the active participation of several stakeholders. The key players in this system are the students. Without their participation and co-operation in working towards goals which they see as interesting and relevant to their life and needs, investment in the system can produce only a poor return. Beyond the students are the parents, rectors, headmasters, teachers, communities and Government.

Efforts will be made towards developing a participatory approach in the education system with concomitant provisions made for decentralisation, in administrative matters, planning, managing, evaluating performance and extra-curricular activities, among others. However, the key to successful implementation of the participatory approach is defining clearly the roles, responsibility and expectations of the various stakeholders. Only then can the teaching and learning strategies be developed into practical realities.

This chapter outlines the expectations from the various stakeholders in this devolved system which will have an emphasis at the regional and school levels. In this new configuration, Government will have as major responsibility the combining of all the stakeholders into an effective participatory force for a vibrant, effective and relevant education system.

The Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development is the prime stakeholder in the provision of education services because it is empowered by the electorate to use public funds and human resources to fit citizens to play a full and responsible part in the life of the Nation. The Ministry will play a central role in achieving cost-effectively the aims of education in response to the needs of Mauritius in order to align it regionally and globally, while satisfying our own specific needs.

Effective planning and research will be ensured in order to avoid waste, adoption of appropriate policies, strategies and practices through legislation, as appropriate. Data generated continuously by research and also advice and information that the Minister of Education and Human Resource Development receives on behalf of Government will underpin any amendments to meet emerging needs and changing circumstances thus resulting in the most imaginative and effective system of education.

Standards, guidelines and targets - With the advent of globalisation, no country can thrive in isolation, least of all Mauritius, which relies heavily on its international standing for its prosperity. The Ministry will establish standards on the advice of relevant bodies reflecting optimum levels internationally while accommodating to national circumstances.

Appropriate guidelines will be developed to reach the standards and targets set nationally. These will be realistic in the context of the facilities and resources available but sufficiently challenging to secure the best efforts on the part of students and teachers. The standards, guidelines and targets will be reviewed regularly to ensure that they remain appropriate to current needs and circumstances.

Curriculum development - Curriculum, like standards, now has an international dimension and must measure up to this dimension if the expectations of all the stakeholders in education are to be met. Thus curricula will be developed such that they are relevant to Mauritius while having a wider currency.

Appropriate curricula will also be developed to meet the needs of less able students, all of whom have the right to play a useful part in the future of their country. Close monitoring of the curricula will be necessary to meet the expectations of all the stakeholders, including employers.

Concurrently, explicit quality assurance mechanisms will be instituted or strengthened such that the best quality education be provided. This will be achieved by putting in place indicators on which the quality of the school, including its environment, will be assessed.

Private education - It is vital that the young citizens of Mauritius receive the best possible quality of education irrespective of the settings. This means that parents can choose to send their children to a private school. However, in order to achieve the set educational targets and standards, the Ministry will ensure the maintenance of quality in diversity through sensitive regulation of private education.

The Regional Education Directorates will be central in the decentralised and participatory model. Through this approach, there will be devolution of responsibility thereby reinforcing the sense of participation by the stakeholders at the regional and local levels that will remove the suspicion of insensitive remote control. Experienced professional staff and support staff will man the Directorates as appropriate.

Implementation of policies - Coupled with ensuring that the overall national education policy will be followed accurately, the Regional Education Directorates will have some flexibility in innovation in line with the specificity of the region and on the consensus reached among the stakeholders.

The co-ordination of all education issues in a specific region will be undertaken by the Directorates, which will in turn have firm links with the Ministry, which is responsible for national priorities.

The Directorates will ensure good management practice in schools. This will be achieved both by training of staff at the regional level and by comparative studies of practices in other regions. National benchmarks will be set by the Ministry to provide a valuable guide to regional action.

Quality Assurance - Like management practice, the Regional Education Directorates will put in place quality assurance processes in conformity with national guidelines. Staff training and development will be arranged as appropriate regionally. Close co-operation among the regions will ensure healthy competition and mutual assistance.

Performance - The quality of performance by administrators, senior education staff, teachers, students, parents and the community will be assessed regionally and compared with best practice achievements elsewhere in the country and internationally.

Discipline - Lack of discipline often finds its source in frustration, alienation or a sense of impotence in the face of remote authority. The Regional Education Directorates will be responsible for enforcing discipline based on the national guidelines. It is envisaged that as the systems develop with responsibility to regional and local levels becoming more evident, discipline among both students and staff, should become less of a problem.

As attitudes towards education and the education system become more positive, as members of region and local school boards become known as individuals, and as the Heads of Schools improve their skills in administration and personnel management, fewer acts of indiscipline are likely to arise.

Infrastructure planning and resource utilisation - The Regional Education Directorates will plan for the education infrastructure development and ensure optimum utilisation of resources allocated. At present, educational buildings are a grossly under-utilised resource, occupied only during the day and for a limited number of weeks in the year.

The Directorates will help lift the visions of the schools to become institutions offering after-hours courses for adults and community access to school libraries, information technology, science, arts, sporting and gymnastic facilities, so drawing in wide cross-section of stakeholders who see a practical benefit for their support of the institutions. The Directorates will plan for the development of these services as an integral component of their planning for the educational infrastructure.

The Heads of institutions should accept that their role is that of a team leader. They have to show academic and managerial leadership such that their schools thrive towards excellence.

For their part, teachers must appreciate that as team members they have an obligation to contribute to the professional standing and social context of the institution in which they serve. Appropriate development programmes will be arranged following joint consultation. Members of the teaching profession often feel that their status is being progressively eroded for a number of reasons.

One means by which the status of the teaching profession could be reinforced and publicised is by the formation of a select body comprising worthy members of the teaching profession from all levels of education, from all subject areas and specialities, and from both the public and private sectors of education.

A Mauritius Academy of Education will be established as an independent organisation electing its members from among those teachers, rectors, headmasters and administrators who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of education in the country.

The Academy would provide a unique centre for cross-fertilisation of professional thought and offer mutual benefit to its members. The Academy could sponsor small-scale research especially interdisciplinary research, publish material of interest to the teaching profession, and provide an "umbrella" to assist other professional groups of educators such as subject and area associations, without detracting from the autonomy of these specialised groups.

Prestige would accrue to those individuals elected to the Academy, who could be identified by postnomials indicating their level of membership - as Associates, Members or Fellows (AMAE, MMAE, FMAE). The Government and others could look to the Academy for unbiased advice on educational matters and could consider members of the Academy when seeking members for public bodies, both educational and other.

Parents and the Community - Parental and community support is vital for education success as students spend only a modest proportion of each week's 168 hours in school. The school cannot be held responsible for the complete education of its students. Values, beliefs, social skills and attitudes are largely implanted by the time a child enters primary school; the rest is fine-tuning.

Parents and teachers must interact regularly to discuss school matters, specific problems of their children and their needs. They must be sensitised to school activities such as outings, sports and other extra-curricular activities.

Participation by parents and community members as mentors, hearing children read, assisting with sports and music, participating in school social functions, seeking election to the school board, all will undoubtedly help to demonstrate the value which parents and the community place on the education system.

This "White Paper" has attempted to take an objective view of our present Education System, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. Suggestions to address these shortcomings have been proposed for the consideration of all stakeholders.

In making these suggestions, we have borne in mind that what we require is a child-centred education rather than a subject-centred one or a teacher-centred one. At this turning point in the development of our nation, it is important to identify clearly our route to the future. Our greatest assets being our people, our way to prosperity no doubt is through a system of education which is capable of producing the economic man as well as the social man of tomorrow.

To succeed in this endeavour, international experience can stand us in good stead. It is common knowledge that most countries which have achieved the best results are those who have massively invested in education, especially in children aged 4 to 15 years.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department