Pauline Etienne
23 October 2007
Port Louis — Some 25,000 CPE pupils are sitting for their two first papers today. In spite of all the criticism, the ordeal of 11-year olds still prevails with its fierce competition and will go on producing about 7,000 failures.
Standard VI pupils are sitting for the Certificate of Primary Education exams as from this morning until Friday.
More than thirty percent of the candidates sitting for the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) examinations that start this morning are going to fail. Despite the guarantees given by the director of the Mauritius Examinations Syndicate (MES), Lucien Finette, that results will be better this year compared to 2006, the success rate has little chance of going beyond 70%. And yet the authorities go on with a system that will probably leave more than 7,000 eleven-year olds out of the formal education system.
The former director of the Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE), Pritam Parmessur, worked towards the elimination of the CPE when he chaired the National Steering Committee on the curriculum framework. Soon afterwards - as his official report recommended the gradual elimination of this highly competitive examination - he was asked to take early retirement.
In an interview to l'express, he explained: "We can't afford to leave 30 % to 40 % of our children out on the streets at the end of primary school. Can Mauritius progress like that? It is impossible. This is why I proposed a system where the notion of failure simply does not exist. In an egalitarian democracy, we must have an education system where all children have the same chances."
If the National Curriculum Framework had been introduced as recommended by the former MIE director, the CPE would simply have been abolished and gradually replaced by continuous assessment. This would have helped reduce the pressure on children during their last year in primary school and made it easier to assess their work over the years.
During a forum on education, former MES director, Surendra Bissoondoyal, stressed this point. "Assessment and evaluation are completely different from examinations. After six years, it is too late to see if children have difficulty understanding concepts. If a concept has not been understood at 6 or 7 years of age, then remedial action should be taken at that age and not wait until the child is11 years old, as itis the case at the moment."
For Pritam Parmessur, the CPE exam does not allow pupils to "acquire the aptitudes and qualities that the child should develop. We can't limit the development of the child to four or five subjects. We should extend the school programme to have a more comprehensive basis. The programme should be taught in an integrated way".
The CPE indeed relies on four or five main subjects that may give some academic basics but does not help the child's overall development. Citizenship Education and Information and Communication Technologies have still not found their real place in all primary classes - even less in CPE exams. Yet, they are skills that would certainly better prepare children for the secondary - and even for adult life.
Instead of this, children continue to learn only for exam purposes. Rote learning does not help acquire lifelong skills. On the contrary, many children may forget the course content as soon as they leave the examination room.
The MES report on CPE for 2006 pointed at the difficulty of using French and English. This actually shows the low quality of results at CPE level. Even if a large number of pupils were to succeed in CPE exams, the question is whether they have good results or average marks that only enable them to go to secondary school. And the report tends to show that they have average results only - particularly as far as languages are concerned.
"Teachers do not have the time to go off the beaten track. As the system is now, the most important thing is that the child gets a seat in a national college."
The British Council report on the use of English also points at the insufficient level in understanding and use of English of 50% of the pupils chosen for the testing panel (11 to 14 year-olds). This obviously means that these pupils were not given the basics at primary school to make sure they could read, write and understand languages properly.
Because of their busy schedule and the fact that they want to give the maximum chances of success to their pupils, teachers do not take the time to go off the beaten track. As the system is now, the most important thing is the child gets a seat in one of the 11 national colleges - for this they have to pass their exams with four A+.
The Mauritius Report prepared by African experts for the Association for the Develop-ment of Education in Africa (ADEA) published last year was just one more stone added to the edifice of criticisms of the education system in Mauritius. The report simply recommended the abolition of CPE exams in favour of a more equitable system. It can't be accepted that, while education is free in Mauritius, 30 to 40% of pupils can't go on to benefit from secondary education.
After an attempt by the government to abolish ranking and the fierce competition at CPE level, the present government re-established the system last year. Despite opposing views of pedagogues, the ministry of Education implemented the A+ formula and its national colleges. The only way of getting rid of this elitist system would be the introduction of the unchanged national curriculum framework but there is no indication that this will happen
Teachers' views
MCA report partly explains high failure rate
â- If teachers are not given proper support to teach in classrooms, how can we expect a high success rate at the CPE? This is what the Survey of Needs of Upper Primary School Teachers for Support by the Mauritius College of the Air (MCA) recently pointed at. Teachers must indeed be given the means to teach properly.
A lack of audiovisual material, support in the teaching of mathematics or practical demonstrations for science lessons are among the main criticisms from teachers to explain that their job is not easy. But the report also makes it clear that "the CPE exams tend to influence the demands and choices of some teachers as far as pedagogical support is concerned".
If the main preoccupation of teachers remains the issue of CPE exams, there is little chance that children will be led to think out of the box Only a complete change in the system will bring teachers to think of the long term.
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