Patrick Hilbert
26 August 2008
Port Louis — Rejected by many in the beginning, the concept of using our Mother Tongue as a medium of education is slowly but surely overcoming the barriers of scepticism. So far, the tests have already proven to be conclusive.
Pupils of the pre-vocational departement of the Loreto college of Port-Louis. Those who reached their final year took part in a bilingual evaluation exercice.
The idea of accepting the use of our Mother Tongue, Creole, as a medium of education is slowly making its path in the minds of those involved in decision-making. Last week, during a meeting between Navin Ramgoolam and Jocelyn Gregoire, chairman of the "Fédération des Créoles Mauriciens", the Prime minister told the latter about his opinion on the role Creole should play in schools. And the outcome was rather positive.
The defenders of Mauritian Creole in education now await a political development on this sensitive issue. In the meantime, the Bureau of Catholic Education (BEC) continues to build its project to introduce Creole as a medium for learning in primary schools as from 2010.
It has filed an official request to the Ministry of Education with a view of obtaining the permission to send its trainee teachers to follow a course on Creole Studies at the University of Mauritius. The program will start in the days to come. "The ministry will have to take a stand on this issue", according to an obersver.
In reply to a parliamentary question, several weeks ago, Education minister Dharam Gokhool stated that his ministry was working on the whole issue and that the setting up of a committee regarding the introduction of Mauritian Creole in primary schools is "presently being considered".
In fact, the suggestion was made during the course of a meeting which the minister had with the BEC in February last. The officials of this authority suggested the setting up of a team comprising representatives of the ministry of Education, the BEC, the Mauritius Institute of Education and the University of Mauritius. Request to which the minister agreed."Since then, there were no developments though. We're still waiting", says Jimmy Harmon, Project coordinator at the BEC.
Dharam Gokhool, for his part, said he was waiting for the outcome of a large scale socio-linguistic study made by the catholic authorities to determine the modalities of introducing Mauritian Creole as a subject in some primary schools on a pilot basis as a first step. The preliminary findings of that study will be submitted in November. The full report will probably be released in February.
"The defenders of Mauritian Creole now await a political development (...) The ministry will have to take a stand on this issue."
Meanwhile, the BEC has already submitted the proposed terms of reference of the mixed committee which examines the whole issue on Mauritian Creole to the ministry. "On 11 June 2007, a committee chaired by the Permanent Secretary of my Ministry examined the proposed terms of reference submitted by BEC", the minister declared.
However, the ministry also received representations of a sociocultoral organization regarding Bhojpuri. So it is likely that the terms of reference of the committee will have to be enlarged to include that language as well, "as both Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri are inherited languages".
In the meantime, BEC also continues with its "PrevokBEK " project. For the second year in a row, the pupils who reached their final year of "PrevokBek" took part in a bilingual evaluation exercice using Creole and English languages. The examinations, organized by the BEC, were held between July 2nd and 11th. About two hundred students participated.
Last year, the results were rather surprising. 76% of the participants, who failed CPE for the second time three years ago, succeeded in these exams which had a Form II standard. Here are the details : 75% success in Enlgish, 93% in Maths 82% in French, 92% in Integrated Science & Technical Studies and 72% in Creative Arts and 64% in Creole.
These results arroused the ministry of Education's, who was very reluctant in the beginning. That same minsitry had even refused to form part of a committee together with BEC at the beginning of the experience.
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