I have asked a few questions before in my time and answers have often been provided, even if not directly or instantly. However, my questions about the re-opening of our schools have elicited absolutely no attempt of an answer whatsoever so far, in spite of the fact that some of the decisions look horribly prudent, at the expense of the students themselves!

Why is that? In the absence of a logical explanation, maybe it is just that the language used, i.e. French, is not appropriate for our Ministry of Education and its top guns, minister downwards?

Therefore, I will have another go. This time in English. Using the exemplary New Zealand of Jacinda Ardern as a comparative prop. A model country, if ever there was one!

Have a look at the Table illustrating the tale of our two islands. In the first five lines, there is a fair bit of parallelism. We actually hold our own very well. We have a few more deaths per thousand of population than New Zealand, but that is not significant. We have carried out close to twice more Covid 19 tests per million population than New Zealand, which is a real feather in our cap as far as ascertaining whether Covid 19 is lying low, somewhere, invisibly. Those tests, in fact, establish how deeply Covidfree we are by now!

The next line refers more to governance and to transparency. New Zealand has four fully explicited levels of vigilance with respect to Covid 19 and the population is thus fully informed of what is coming, ahead of any level of vigilance being notified to citizens. The latter can, in between such notifications, comment and push for any reasonable change. Planning ahead, which is desirable, is thus possible. New Zealand is currently at level 2 since 15th May and is considering this week to move to level 1. Its schools have been open since 18th May, with some precautions, of course. In Mauritius, there is no transparency as to what can happen next and rules are made as we move along. On the hoof, as it were. Like the Ministry of Education’s press conference of 6th June, which took most people by surprise and was anything but a successful D-day, if only by referring to the looks of the men sitting next to the minister!

The ninth line says quite clearly that we have been better than even the All Blacks, having had our last ‘indigenous‘ case of coronavirus ONE FULL MONTH before New Zealand’s. Holy smoke!

The last two entries in that table are those that lead to questions.

Q1. What is so special about Mauritius that New Zealand can start opening its schools on May 18th, i.e. a full two and a half months before our 1st August and a full four months before our 15th September choices, in Mauritius?

Q2. If other countries which are still identifying new Covid 19 cases and still reporting deaths therefrom are re-opening schools with distanciation and other protocols, why would a covid- free country like ours, postpone schools readmitting children and indeed plan for the most stringent protocols (e.g. pupils to stay in classrooms during break time? Any sports to be carried out with FIVE meters distance between people involved!), TWO TO FOUR MONTHS AFTER NEW ZEALAND opened its own schools? Why such excruciating prudence?

Q3. The ministry makes one exception for pre-primary schools, which can open as from the 22nd June next, with due safety protocols. By what logic is it safe to send kids below 6 years old to school, but NOT YET safe for their elder brothers and sisters?

Q4. Recouping time lost by students being impossible, except at the expense of some other activity (fully half a year has been lost, if we discount government’s ‘home schooling ‘effort – as we should indeed, by referring to a few of the screens seen on MBCTv ), are we really settled in applying the ‘softies’ way back to school ? Just as soft as our famous ‘heavy rain ‘ protocol, for sure, and thus basically risk ‘losing’ one full year for many students who plan to go overseas for university courses, for example ?

There may be very valid reasons to the ministry’s decisions! If so, the above questions will find easy, logical answers. If there are no answers, it would imply there are no good answers and that, once again, the population is being asked to accept opacity and to just swallow and approve what has been dished out to them. Slosh !

With nerves, a little strained after keeping their children home for almost 3 months, by now, parents are anxiously waiting for reasoned answers. And freedom!