“When land is taken away from us and given to someone else for personal gain, how do you expect the community to feel? So members of the community feel it is not right, it is an injustice and they are not happy with that”.

He was minister of education, he is involved in the Mauritius Tamil Federation Vs the State dispute over land allocated to building a Tamil cultural centre and withdrawn by the state and he is a vociferous politician. We sit down with Armoogum Parsuramen this week to have his views on each of these topical issues.

There are several topics I would like us to talk about because of the several hats you wear. Let’s start with education. You must already be aware of the massacre the Extended Programme is causing to our children and the shocking failure rates revealed in parliament last week. What is it exactly that is not being done right?
You know, when you bring in reform, you cannot do that by cooking something in your office and imposing it on others to implement. This is totally wrong because you do not have the full picture. You can be the minister, you could have been a teacher but you don’t know what the problems are. This happened with the nine-year schooling – another failure by the way – and it is happening with the Extended Programme. If the minister and the ministry officials had talked to the teachers, educators, people involved in the day-to-day running of the schools, they would have got to know what the real problems are.

And what are the real problems?
The real problem is that the Extended Programme was not conceived in the interest of the children enrolled in it.

What does that mean in practical terms?
The Extended Programme was designed to put pupils who have failed in classrooms for four years. After those four years, they still have to take the same exams taken by pupils who are academically gifted.

The intention was to give the slow learners one more year to grasp the syllabus…
They will not be able to cope with those exams! They have already failed once. Even if you give them five more years and ask them to sit the same exams, they will still fail.

So what should have been done?
During my time, pupils failing were given a curriculum adapted to them and their needs.

They didn’t have to sit the same exams as the main stream, did they?
No, they didn’t. They sat different exams. If the programme is the same, the pedagogy is the same, the approach is the same, the teachers are not trained to respond to the new needs, how is it going to work? This is how 98 per cent of children failed! But instead of looking at this damning failure rate and doing their own mea culpa, they go around behaving as if nothing had happened! They persist in keeping pupils in the same schools and teaching them the same programme.

You still haven’t told me what should be done…
If a pupil has failed a couple of times, you have to assess them and find out what they are good at and help them develop those skills: gardening, metal work, electric work…whatever they feel at ease with and makes them happy. They can’t be put in the same schools as the mainstream pupils and made to do the same thing. There were prevocational schools for them before.

Didn’t the prevocational schools operate like ghettos?
Not at all. The MGIS was a good example. Go and see how happy the children were there. They were saying, “Now I am happy, studying and learning something”. They weren’t learning before. Why bother them with academic subjects? You teach them the basics. That is what every other country is doing. You don’t expect every pupil to be a laureate or academically competent. Unfortunately, there aren’t many non-academic subjects offered to those who are not academic. That is the problem. The Extended Programme was ill-conceived, it did not involve the parties concerned, did not take a second look at the syllabus, the methodology or the teacher training etc. and they expected good results! On top of that, they were so arrogant about it that they didn’t even check what was happening in other countries if only to avoid the mistakes they made.

What is the cost of all this?
The cost is not only material. When you are educating pupils and you make them fail again, they are branded as failures. Do you see the harm you have caused? Those pupils will be treated by society as failures and excluded. What do you think they will do after that? With drugs rampant and available everywhere, they will be prey to marsan la mort.

More than 11,000 pupils are being lined up to go through the same torture. Is that normal?
You know, you can’t interact with members of this government. They don’t listen. They don’t answer questions in parliament. They don’t talk to parents. So more damage will be done.

The pass mark was also lowered. From 33% you previously needed to pass an exam – a percentage which was not very high to start with – all you need now is 27%, and even 25% in some subjects! What is the point of that?
The point is to avoid criticism. Instead of having more pupils failing because the level has gone down, you lower the pass mark and you have more passes with a much lower level. When you look at the outcome, these pupils fail later. It is not them failing in fact. It is the school failing them because it is not adapting to their needs.

Let us move now to the controversy about land allocated to the Mauritius Tamil Federation and taken back by the government. What happened at the meeting you held on Saturday between members of the federation?
I won’t be able to give all the details but it was a very positive meeting. The aim is to see how the dignity and rights of the community are not being trampled upon.

“Instead of having more pupils failing because the level has gone down, you lower the pass mark and you have more passes with a much lower level. When you look at the outcome, these pupils fail later.”

Is that how your community is feeling right now?
In this case, definitely. When land is taken away from us and given to someone else for personal gain, how do you expect the community to feel? So members of the community feel it is not right, it is an injustice and they are not happy with that.

The government’s way of looking at things is that they may have taken away land from the Mauritius Tamil Federation but they gave them another piece of land. Why don’t they just take that and go?
The minister of housing stated in parliament: “We have called them, they have agreed and we gave them land in La Vigie.” About that la Vigie: the Voice of Hindu was given land there and they declared in the press that they had to abandon the construction started because of the climatic conditions there. Now what is the purpose of constructing a socio-cultural base? It is to encourage people to come there, learn the culture and benefit from the wisdom of those who are there. So it has to be somewhere accessible. La Vigie is not accessible and it is on marshy land. How can you construct a cultural centre there? The proof is that the Voice of Hindu stopped construction there and handed the land back. The government is cheating people by giving them land where they can’t build themselves. If that land at La Vigie is so good, why don’t you go and build houses there?

Minister of Housing Obeegadoo said that the community is happy and that those who are making noise are just troublemakers. Is that the case?
That is most unbecoming of Obeegadoo. That is arrogance. You can’t qualify people fighting for their rights as troublemakers.

What is the point of having so many cultural centres anyway, other than dividing Hindus even more
The reality is that each community wants to have its identity but in the spirit of the rainbow nation. Even in India, if you go to Tamil Nadu and want to impose something there, they won’t allow you to. So India has to keep each of its states separate and this is what the UNESCO advocates under the convention of cultural diversity. In Mauritius, there is the Dodo Club, the Racing Club…Among the Hindus, there is the Marathi group, Hindu speaking group…and among the Hindi speaking, there are different castes. Look how many languages we teach at school. What I mean is that they seek their own identity and it is very important for every country to maintain that diversity. Unfortunately, many of the groupings which are proliferating today have political motivations, which is certainly not good for the country.

Are the divisions good for the country?
As long as we think in the interests of the country. It is a question of mind-set that we are Mauritians.

How do we assess your mind-set?
In our separate groups, we can do what we like but in public, we have to stand by each other and represent every colour of the rainbow. All in all, we are an educated population and overall, we do not trespass. We are living peacefully together. So far, we have been able to maintain that. There are so many different groups in society.

Exactly! How did we find ourselves in this situation? Why can’t we be like Singapore?
We can’t be like Singapore for as long as the government is not looking at every component of the population as full-fledged citizens. This is what I call the rainbow concept. If you don’t nurture each colour of the rainbow, you can’t have a nation like in Singapore. Over there, every community has its rights. Tamil and Malay are official languages in a country where the majority are Chinese. There, the government ensures everyone is equal and works in the interest of the nation. Over here, the perception is that some groups are excluded. Look at the policy of education, for example. Who are those children who are failing? All these things being done, consciously or unconsciously, stand in the way of nation building. You have to respect people’s identity.

What you are saying is that if there are so many divisions, it is because the government is not looking after its people equally, is it?
That is the perception. And it is more than a perception. It is a fact. Look at the nominations for example. The other way, I looked at the people nominated on Le Morne Trust Fund. There were very few people from the general population. That is not how you bring people together. Compare that to other countries. Even India has consideration for so many groups: the backward classes have reserved seats, disabled people benefit from laws of 3 per cent in the government service (here this only applies to the private sector)…What I am trying to say is that a good government should be able to look after all its citizens. This government has politicised all the institutions and made them doormats. Look at the result!

A brief trip into politics. How do you see the political situation evolving?
From my point of view, as a founder of the Mouvement Socialiste Militant (MSM) I have some sort of feeling that this was my party because I had been involved in it from the beginning. Now this party is in power.

You should be happy. Are you?
I am not happy. What was the vision we had when we were creating the MSM? We were telling the population that this party will serve everybody. And our symbol – the sun – is for everybody. The party started well.

When did things start going south?
I think when Anerood Jugnauth came back to power in the alliance with the MMM in the year 2000, you could already see that it was not the same Anerood of 1083-95…

What was so different?
He didn’t have full control of the situation. Previously he was the only captain on-board. But still, the MSM and the MMM did some good things. Then came 2014 when Jugnauth came back. He was not the same because he was not the leader of the party. He was the leader of the alliance. In confidence, we know that Pravind Jugnauth was not taking the advice of his father, was not consulting him etc. He was the boss of the party. So he could decide.

“If the programme is the same, the pedagogy is the same, the approach is the same, the teachers are not trained to respond to the new needs, how is it going to work? This is how 98 per cent of children failed!”

Were you not happy with the Papa/Piti deal?
Certainly not! I wasn’t happy with him taking over without an election nor with the way it was done or the role of the then-president, who didn’t know what was going to happen to her later. Not that Anerood Jugnauth did any of this wholeheartedly. Not at all. You know that, don’t you?

Was he pushed aside?
He was! He had announced that he would lay the foundation for the Metro Express but before that, he was removed from Government House.

But even during Anerood Jugnauth’s leadership, as early as 2015, we saw some horrendous things happening: arbitrary arrests, terror, revenge politics…
That is what I am saying. He was not in full command or he was perhaps instrumentalised. The objective was for the Jugnauths to maintain themselves in power by any means. Going to the extent of introducing the Prosecution Commission etc. These are things you do not do! The result is that V-Dem for example gave a damning report on our democracy. It said it is hanging on a threat. It is shameful for us.

What is it that bothers you most about what is going on today?
What bothers me most is that the institution that are supposed to serve the public are now operating in a shocking way: arbitrary arrests, injustice, corruption, drugs and cover up, deux poids deux mesures…The worst part of it is parliament. The way the speaker is dealing with elected members of parliament is disgraceful.

So what will happen according to you? Are people aware of what is going on or is everyone firefighting without realising the implications of all the ills you have mentioned on their lives and the future of their children?
People are aware but money politics plays a very important role. The power of money can influence voters and the MSM as we know has a lot of money. When it is not money, it is fear. People are terrified of talking. So everyone is waiting. In the meantime, the government members behave as if they were the owners of Mauritius. They do whatever they want with despicable arrogance.

Are you saying that when the elections come, voters are going to forget all the scandals and just take the money?
I don’t know. It is also true that people have short memories and don’t know that their children and grandchildren have no future.

What are your hopes for the country?
That we become the example in democracy that we were. That we go back to a debt level that was below 50%, that our institutions regain the independence they once had. If we carry on the way we are, we are heading for a big catastrophe. As a patriot, I feel sad that our country is being dragged in this direction. I appeal to every Mauritian to sit and think about what they want for their country and what they can do for their country.

And what can Mauritians do for their country?
They can exercise their vote in a rational manner.