Canadian Diploma
The Industrial and Vocational Training Board (IVTB) will be offering courses in collaboration with a Canadian institution as from September next.

The diplomas will be recognized by both countries. The diploma holders will be able to work either in Mauritius or emigrate to Canada.

The IVTB intends to train persons into professionals of handy-jobs namely plumbers, electricians, cooks and pastry chefs, among others. Also, the IVTB will be offering diploma courses in Management for an approximate fee of Rs 60 000 and it has also planned a course in accountancy in association with the Certified General Accountants of Canada (CGA) by the end of this year. The courses will be offered in the former British American Tobacco building, in Port Louis.

UPSEE protests
The Union of Private Secondary Education Employees (UPSEE) is contesting in the Supreme Court the decision of the Ministry to extend the school calendar of the second and third terms.

UPSEE says the ten-day extension  is an arbitrary decision and is to the detriment of students, the teaching and the non-teaching staff. The union also intends to hold a meeting at the Marie Reine de la Paix Social Centre, in Port Louis, today Friday May 22.

InnovEd Winners
The National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) held its 5th edition of InnovEd at the auditorium of Mahatma Gandhi Institute (MGI) from May 19 to 21, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Human Resources. The participants were students of pre-primary, primary and secondary institutions of Mauritius and Rodrigues. The aim of InnovEd is to promote creativity in the students and develop their capacity to innovate  at a young age.

The winners for this year's edition are: Earliers Pre-Primary School and R.P Nuckchady Pre-Primary School for the pre-primary category; Henrietta G.S and Surtee Soonee G.S for lower primary and upper primary schools respectively; and Sir Abdool Raman Osman SSS and Rivière des Anguilles SSS as well as Grande Montagne College from Rodrigues for the lower and upper secondary category respectively.

STD IV tuitions
Teachers of primary schools are against the decision of the Ministry of Education of abolishing tuitions in Standard IV. The  decision  will be effective as from January 2010. According to the teachers, the Standard IV is the foundation of the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) and that taking tuition  from that level will better prepare the pupils for the CPE exams.

Van owners plea
The “komité van lékol” has asked for an exemption of customs duty on the purchase of vans. The association, which groups the proprietors of school vans, has appealed to the Minister of Finance, Rama Sithanen, through a letter, to consider their request.

According to the President of “komité van lékol”, Nazir Jungee, 50% of the school vans have been in use for more than 20 years and need to be replaced. However, a new van costs Rs 800 000 and the customs taxes of the van amounts to Rs 300 000.

The association, therefore, has asked the Government to remove the customs duty so that the van proprietors could buy new school vans . He has added that if there was no reply from the Minister, an owner would call for a demonstration  in the capital.

24/7 in schools
In its objective to turn Mauritius into a 24/7 economy, the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) has elaborated a programme to introduce the concept in primary schools.
It is a campaign of proximity and, according to Deepak Tulsidas, Chairman of HRDC, this campaign will be more effective than the previous ones.