“We are not competing with the child sitting next to us but with the kid in Kerala, New York and Shenzhen.”

The eye of the storm is now in the ministry of education after the minister of finance mentioned the nine-year schooling project during the budget speech, thus swinging the spotlight back to it. Talk about school reforms and particularly the Certificate of Primary Education exam has not always been dispassionate in this country. It has always started at hysterical and quickly geared up to apocalyptic. And it has hardly been disinterested. It is always seen in terms of communities and what they stand to lose and, before we get anywhere, it soon starts raining frogs and blood.

This time round, the debate will again suck everyone in. Over 25,000 pupils take the CPE exam every year. Do the math and you will realise that just about everyone is concerned. So, this is the time to ask questions and make sure we do not lose focus of the real issues. Pedagogically speaking, there has, for a number of years now, been a consensus around the nine-years schooling idea. So, the fact that the minister of education has finally had the courage to go that way and the minister of finance has given his support, shows that there are good intentions out there. However, as we all know, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. It is important that we do not rush into a half-baked project.

The real problem with our education system is not that it is too competitive. It is too competitive too early. We all realise by now that we cannot shelter our children from competition forever. So, by moving the competition to a more reasonable age, we are allowing our children to have a better, more fulfilling childhood, away from the crazy pressure and the mad race which the child now faces at the age of 11.

Also, we have not yet come to terms with the fact that the world has become a global village and that we are therefore not competing with the child sitting next to us but with the kid in Kerala, New York and Shenzhen. So, it is time we opened up to each other and stopped thinking that by improving the distribution of our national cake, we are decreasing our chances of moving ahead in life. We are not. In the global village, the only recipe for success is through closing ranks and placing the competition where it belongs: beyond our frontiers.

In this debate, we should also not lose sight of the practicalities. I do share Steven Obeegadoo’s concerns about 14-year-olds sharing the same school with five-year-olds. These objections will be raised by parents soon enough and should therefore be addressed before any decision has been taken. Also, once the CPE is gone as an exam, what will it to be replaced with? What we don’t want is have a situation where the illiteracy of some of our children is shifted to secondary school. The automatic promotion has to stop and our children’s weaknesses have to be diagnosed and remedied at every stage of their development. As it is, we have children scraping through CPE who are not much better than those left behind. We have to avoid a situation where pupils come out of Form III without the necessary reading and writing skills.

And, more importantly, let’s stop fooling ourselves: the problems with our education system will not end by magic. We have to invest further in after-school care. The nineyear schooling project is commendable but is not a magic wand. But we’ll weather that storm when we get to it. 

weekly@lasentinelle.mu