allAfrica.com: Mauritius: To All Stakeholders of the Education Sector (Page 1 of 1)

The Honourable Minister Dharam Gokool should admit that he has failed somewhere in his duty. He has shown lack of competency and efficiency in taking the reign of the Ministry of Education in his hands. The truth is that he wanted to remain adamant on his decision for maintaining a normal school day despite the meteorological station informed the public that there will be heavy downpour throughout the whole day.

He did not gave a second thought to the problems that pupils may face on their way to school, instead he was may be mostly concerned with "No way teachers at home due to rainfall". But dear Honourable Minister, do you realize that this has cost the life of an innocent 13-year old school girl? I feel somewhere you are responsible for this irreparable mistake. The parents have lost a priceless jewels which none of us is rich enough to return the unfortunate parents.

It is wisely said that education is not confined to the four walls of a room but in fact, life experiences and the use of common sense are necessary ingredients in shaping and moulding the personality of an individual. Even uneducated parents and the common layman were able to guess that it was almost impossible for their kids to go to school on Wednesday, that is why many among them awaited long for a positive reply from the ministry, but that was useless.

Most Parents, teachers and students had enough brains to judge just by observing at the weather condition that it was almost impossible to have schools on Tuesday and Wednesday last (25th and 26th March respectively). We need to look at the practical sides of life and decide what is best and how far a risk taken can be beneficial to those concerned with it. That is the reason why Man boasts himself for being superior to animals. He has the reasoning power, is it not? Neither animal cannot be practical because they are programmed by neither nature nor robots because they too are programmed but this time by Man. So, instead of taking a decision by looking at whether for example 100mm of rain has fallen or not it is better we show greater concern with whether it is really practical for our little kids to face the abnormal rainfall to go to school.

We deal with pupils daily, we know well how much uneasy they are at school during torrential rain (please do not mind we do not give any measurement in terms of millimeters to the term Torrential). Many pupils are soaked to the skin even though carrying an umbrella. Can you imagine pupils staying the whole day in a class with wet uniforms, socks and shoes?

It is a pity to learn that the innocent child who died while returning home being measured as a very insignificant number who died due to the torrential rain! It was as if we are counting the percentage of chicken that died due to bird flu. In fact, the truth would have been bitter to digest since a hundred of death of innocent children would have been recorded on Wednesday last if rectors and managers of mainly private schools would not have taken the firm decision for early release.

I congratulate those Managers and Rectors who dared to take such a decision on Wednesday without waiting for any so-called communiqué from the ministry or by measuring the number of millimeters of rain fallen.

I owe a special thank to my school, Mayflower college at Belvedere, which even dared to stop a first term exam paper which was in progress and forced them to go home by half past noon. This is being practical and being a good sign of having efficient and world class quality people who are living in an intelligent island of ours! We had no enough time to think of the rain gauge. And if Mayflower College would have delayed the release for another half an hour then hundreds of corpses would have been scattered. Because just after that the angry torrential rain flooded the region drowning cars and houses within minutes. The angry water even obstructed the region and buses almost failed to pave their way to their destination. That region was even shown at 7.30 p.m news bulletin. The bus stops where our kids wait for buses Thank God you gave us that little bit but invaluable common sense! Hats off to our short but daring rector Mrs. B.D Dayal and some teachers who took the right action at the right time.

I think the performance related pay should first and foremost be applied to our Ministers and their advisors before being applied to others. It is the income tax payers' money that is being used inefficiently. I would have preferred to see all the pupils going to school on Thursday 27th and some coming back home if ever their school premises not satisfying the minimum conditions than they are made to face the last two days Torrential rain.

Just as it is justifiable for a minister to be revoked because of his attitude towards the government he belongs to, so it should be for a minister whose attitude has not pleased thousands of Mauritian who voted the government for better living condition and security.

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