Pauline Etienne
20 March 2008
Port Louis — The ZEP unit of the ministry of Education is taking the necessary measures to make the pupils attend school regularly. They have managed to improve the situation but there is still much to be done.
More than 100 pupils do not attend school on Fridays and Mondays at Serge Coutet primary school in Baie-du-Tombeau. This ZEP school is one of those which obtained the worst results at the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) exams last year but the community wants to improve the situation. The involvement of parents and the community are among the reasons why the results of many other ZEP schools have improved since their setting up in 2003.
"Absenteeism has come down from 22% to 15% from 2003 and to date. The various measures taken like the employment of mediator parents and liaison officers as well as the organisation of activities after school to make it a more pleasant environment have definitely helped improve the situation. But we are still working on this issue and will monitor the situation even more to further improve the situation," said Anif Gurib, ZEP coordinator at the ministry of Education.
But the situation has obviously not made much progress in every region. This is why social worker Rosie Khedoo is mobilising the maximum number of parents to a meeting next Thursday to try and make them aware of the necessity to send their children to school everyday.
If the overall success rate for ZEP schools has increased since 2003 - despite a slight drop last year - some schools still lag behind. "We've gone from 29% to 36% success rate at the CPE exams. The commitment of the community and the improvement in the school infrastructure are certainly part of the reasons for that success," the ZEP coordinator pointed out. Moreover, he explained that the ZEP unit of the ministry now has the right number of resources to conduct and follow up the work in the field.
Rosie Khedoo acknowledges that much progress has been made in school infrastructure and the general environment over the past few years but "much remains to be done". The recent problem of cleaning the school toilets, which led to a sit-in by parents last Monday, was an example of the improvements that could be brought to the school. "It is about children's hygiene and we should not play with it."
Alternative pedagogy
If the contribution of teachers is essential in the success of these schools, their negligent attitude can also lead to the opposite effect. "Some teachers are merely interested in the allowance they have when they come to a ZEP school. Obviously pupils will feel that they are not interested in making them achieve any progress and will consequently make no effort in the classroom," said a teacher in a ZEP school in Plaines-Wilhems who did not want to be named.
Anif Gurib pointed out that the policy has recently changed on this issue. "According to the initial strategy document, teachers could choose if they wanted to go into a ZEP school or not. However, we changed this and the ministry is now responsible for sending teachers in the ZEP school We realised that we would soon be out of teachers in such schools otherwise. But we make sure teachers can adapt to this teaching environment and method and may be brought to move them if they can't get used to it," he made it clear.
According to Rosie Khedoo, one of the best ways of ensuring better results for these children would be to "put the traditional syllabus aside for some time to make sure children have the basic knowledge before getting back into the mainstream system". "Teachers should use an alternative pedagogy that would arouse pupils' interest and force them to respect teachers before making them assimilate the knowledge necessary to pass the exams afterwards. Otherwise we will go on producing illiterate people," she concluded.
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