Santosh Kumar Mahadeo
3 May 2008
analysis
Port Louis — The abolition of the CPE examination cannot be an administrative, bureaucratic and political decision decreed from the top. Here is a bottom-up approach where ground reality determines everything. The CPE will no longer be the nightmare of so many children who, like these from Vallijee Govt school, feel so relieved on the last examination day.
Government's document on reforms in the curriculum finally became yet another opportunity for educationists to drive home a hackneyed platitude - that ranking should be abolished and that the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) cannot remain in its present form as a Selection and Certification exercise. Everybody expected a time frame for the abolition but the minister has up to now refused to give an indicative date.
Selection has ushered a cut-throat competition and what Obeegadoo called a 'rat-race'. It has twisted and warped the objectives of primary education, the objectives of learning have been diverted. Children of many generations have been harassed by a system that has forced them to obtain the highest scores. Parents have become consenting abettors to a daily crime against children, thinking that their sacrifice is a sanctimonious act of noble parenthood. The laureates of this system develop an arrogance and a vain sense of superiority that is unfit for children.
A certification exercise is a mere attestation of the acquisition of knowledge and skills that will help the child more to further levels of achievement. The selection function of CPE is, no doubt, a relic of the past characterized by a post-colonial mentality of replacing colonial rulers by the best indigenous brains in a context of scarcity. The few State Schools found in towns have given way to a pleiad of schools punctuating every part of the island. The revolutionizing policy of free secondary education only a few years after independence has increased access significantly while causing a decline in the quality of the product. In education like in the economics of industries, mass production is accompanied with uniformisation and loss of originality. The nostalgia for teachers of the past, for the discipline of the past, for a youth of the past is a normal regret for every generation, in its quest for the golden fleece, feels a golden age is over.
However, wider access has not abated the obsession with quality that segregates rather than unites. Let us accept that our modern society like the post colonial one revels in parceling and stratifying a nation into elite, middle class and lumpen proletariat. We wanted the best for ourselves and we shall not hesitate to vindicate the best for our children even if it means that we should separate our wards from their peers of other social classes. The vices of a selection exercise have become the governing principles because they benefit a minority which is very articulate and privileged by birth and inheritance. Man has not been able to resolve a sociological paradox. While fighting for equality, we have created niches for our own children.
Our rhetoric has been in favour of rationalism and equal opportunities but we have fostered a philosophy of separatism. Catholic schools, Anglican schools, Arya Samaj schools, Muslim schools and others have seen the day and we have found in the term 'specificities' a blanket shield to justify our worst separatist tendencies. At a macro level, this action reminds me of the birth of free trade and the dismantling of protective nets in the wake of the creation of WTO and the twinning of this endeavour with the creation of NAFTA, SADC, COMESA and the like.
Man throughout history has rarely liked to feel equal to every Tom, Dick and Harry. His disdain for the loss of his identity owing to the 'same feather' syndrome, has made a few birds claim the superiority of their pedigree. Royal Colleges and QEC are not necessarily the best schools according to classical definitions of an 'effective school'. But they protect the rights of the few who want to placard their difference from the hotchpotch.
The repeated failure of 30% of our children every year, the distortion of pedagogy and the poor quality of learning, as CPE reports testify, force us to review our stand. The abolition of a selection function is not a panacea to the problems of primary education. Certain criteria must be fulfilled before CPE is abolished in its present form.
Parents must have the perception that they have a vast range of schools that offer the best opportunities to their children. Why should parents opt for National Colleges if the school nearest their residence can prove to be child-worthy?
In fact, my contention is that such days are visible. CPE is in the throes of a natural death, Mahatma Gandhi Secondary Schools have proved viable alternatives to Royal Colleges and QEC. Many SSS have produced brilliant results at SC. Private colleges have also distinguished themselves. Modern College at Flacq placed a student with a creditable ranking at the last HSC examinations. This quest for quality performance should be stepped up. A few schools that were once prestigious have lapsed into ignominy because of poor results owing to poor management.
The tension created by selection will automatically ease off if a school nearest my residence has the stamp and substance of a national college. We must work out a monitoring strategy to ensure homogenization of levels among schools. It is within the scope of the doable, only if there is greater accountability in the system. It is impossible to give a date or time frame for this endeavour to materialize.
CPE will not be a trauma if our primary schools perform better. Our teaching needs serious rethinking. Learning by rote, mechanical responses, poor literacy, the absence of critical thinking are all symptoms of defective teaching. No date can be given for this reform. But action can be taken to ensure proper teaching and learning. Hitherto nothing serious has been done. We do not need foreign consultants to guide us to our targets. Mauritians have the potential to correct its flaws and ensure that the performance of a majority of our children is upgraded. This is happening in many schools. Such meritorious experiences must be studied and multiplied. The real challenge for the abolition of CPE lies in the overhauling of our pedagogy that has remained feudal and classical. This reform will take place if Government does not yield supinely to Unions and a few Superannuated teachers who operate with threats and confrontational attitudes.
Our examining system needs rethinking. CPE is heavily academic. The MES plays to the tune of selection while we have to find our way to the abolition of selection. We must valorize, reinstate and rehabilitate the teaching of the Arts and Physical Education and other non-academic subjects. We cannot bequeath to the future a system that values academic skills to the exclusion of all other assets that a holistic education can give. We need to find a viamedia between the results of a purely summative assessment and those of purely continuous assessments.
The absence of discipline and accountability in schools makes us doubt the integrity of teachers. For example, we have for long accepted the gaping difference between the performance of our children at lower primary and their performance at upper primary. We have allowed artificially inflated results because many schools have wanted to please parents of lower primary. Standards IV and V final exams are prepared by the ministry and performance plummets down. Why? Assessments regulate the quality of learning. Teachers have up to now refused to carry out continuous assessments in class but have done them in private tuition. CPE will lose its awesome and frightening character if only we ensure discipline among our staff. We must bridge the gap between good performers (A & B grade) and poor performers (D, E and U).
â-è There is a crying need for monitoring and accountability through the setting up of a Pedagogical Inspectorate. Inspectors must be graduates with proven experience as distinguished and reflective teachers, capable of counselling and training teachers and fit to critically examine the implementation of defined curricular goals. We should not imitate the UK Office for Standards in Education. We must do away with the concept of an inspector as a do-all busybody, accumulating skills of inspector, school leader, statistician, maintenance officer and PR officer. If accountability does not become the hallmark of quality in education, we shall be starry-eyed gazers holding only the rhetoric of improvement without tangible results.
What should be the fate of A+ in the context of this endeavour?
Proponents of a segregative view of society would wish it to last. We should favour a new social configuration and do away with the dichotomy between our profession and our practice. We need a workforce where people work in teams. We want intercultural peace. We want a society based on equal opportunities. I do not want a child who thinks he belongs to the community of the best. I would prefer one who is capable of making an effort to be better and better. The child who stagnates at 90% for a year is not my favourite. I prefer the child who can progress from 50% to 75% within the same period. This change of mindset calls for a new pedagogy. In fact, in the event of a new Labour mandate, Mr Gokhool must plead for a removal of A+. His mission is one of the most difficult ones because he is inaugurating a new era in education. The minister's task is to reengineer social aspirations. The ground has to be prepared for the abolition of CPE in its current form.
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