allAfrica.com: Mauritius: Abolishing the CPE as It is (Page 1 of 2)

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.

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