Education: The transmogrification of a noble vocation into a mercenary enterprise.
- By R.A.J. (guest)
- Published 13th May, 2008
One of the key performance indicators that would
impede funding from the European Union is the high level of absenteeism in our
schools; a problem that should have been resolved years ago has been allowed to
fester to such an extent that it is now considered a normal aspect of our
educational system for the school year to consist of two terms only, with the
third term reserved for students taking part in exams to 'revise' at home. This
unofficial policy is merely a euphemism for the unrestrained commercialization
of education, and we have ended up with a service that is free in name only.
Mauritius has one of the best educational systems in the Third World and the yearly S.C. and H.S.C. results attest to that. But they merely repeat the excellent results achieved when all colleges were fee paying institutions. Parents then took greater interest in how individual colleges were performing and whether the teachers were doing the job they were paid by them to do. Very few students paid for private tuition and the classroom, not the teacher's garage, was the proper place for teachers to expound their knowledge and to fully complete the syllabus. This ensured equality of opportunity for all students and prevented those with money to spare to gain an unfair advantage over those who believed that one of SSR's greatest achievements in providing free education would provide them with the same chances in life that poverty had hitherto denied them.
What has happened since education became free in 1976? An explosion in private tuition has benefited those who can afford the extortionate fees, and has given a very comfortable lifestyle to teachers who, in any event, already receive a substantial pay cheque every month from the state. And many parents who cannot afford these fees feel compelled to take loans so that their children can compete with their classmates on equal terms by taking advantage of this unofficial private education system. This is such a lucrative business that it is not uncommon to find science teachers operating their own private laboratories in their homes without any regard to Health and Safety regulations. I personally know several teachers who, often during official school hours, have whole classrooms in their homes on what appears to be a carefully managed shift system, with the queue for the next shift snaking from his courtyard into the road. Most of it is tax free as only an infinitesimal amount is ever declared to the fiscal authorities.
Why is this scandalous abuse of the education system allowed to continue? Ask students and they will tell you that often they have no choice but to enrol in private tuition classes because teachers somehow find it impossible/unable/unwilling to complete the syllabus in the classroom. This results in the vicious circle of students having to pay through the nose for lessons that are supposed to be free in order to keep up academically with their classmates.
All that free education has achieved is the transfer of parents' money in fees from the colleges into teachers' pockets.And the taxpayer continues to pick the tab for teachers' salaries and expenditure on infrastructure. It has resulted in a lowering of standards at classroom level and has compelled parents to pay privately the very same people responsible for the lowering of standards in the classroom. It also encourages teachers to manufacture 'free' periods to give them more time to accommodate their paying students at home. If people think I am being harsh on teachers, they must ask themselves this simple question: if your children were properly educated in the classroom and getting the full attention of the teacher, would there be a need for private tuition?
Everyone talks about it; it is like the elephant in the sitting room: we can all see it and know that it should not be there but we prefer to ignore such an incongruous state of affairs. We would rather complain amongst ourselves about our children having to wake up very early in the morning in order to attend private tuition classes and returning home late at night after evening paid tutorials. What are we doing to our children at such a sensitive stage of their development? No pedagogical expert on earth would tell you that a 12 hour day of formal education is beneficial. And yet, we insist on feeding a system that is intrinsically corrupt and which destroys the raison d'etre of the provision of free education. We end up with a system where parents are paying far more in tuition fees to teachers now than they ever paid colleges in the past for the education of their children! We have allowed a free education system to be manipulated into a privatised industry where teachers cash in at our expense not once but twice: first with a generous salary and holiday scheme and secondly by charging extortionate tuition fees to compensate for the artificially induced lacuna in classroom efficiency.
How can the children of poor people compete with those whose parents can afford the luxury of paying teachers for special treatment? How can they ever dream of achieving the same results as their more comfortable classmates when the syllabus is completed in the teachers' garage, a place where access is denied simply because their parents happen to be poor? How can they ever discover and participate in the marvelous world of l
earning
when the teacher's attention is focused primarily on those who subsidise his
salary?
My biggest concern with education in Mauritius has nothing to do with elite or national colleges; I am far more concerned with the lack of direction at the Ministry of Education, the unmitigated cowardice of most politicians to deal with the mercenary component of a supposedly 'free' education system, and the obsession with the latest trend. A vociferous minority is clamouring for our children to be taught in creole because apparently that is what an obscure United Nations document recommends as the magic bullet that will immediately transform the academic potential of all our children into gleaming certificates of achievement. Does anyone really believe this nonsense? The problem has never been the mode of language for teaching, but rather the quality and commitment of teachers. An education system that is based on doing the minimum in the classroom in order to attract the maximum number of paying customers for tuition at home is doomed to failure, irrespective of the language used to teach.
Some people claim that the idea of academic competition at a young age is wrong. Why? The premise that we do not want our own children to achieve their full academic potential and to be 'better' than their peers is absurd and goes against everything that parenthood stands for. Who amongst us does not stand proudly on Sports Day and make absolute fools of ourselves by loudly supporting our kids to beat their friends in every event that they compete? When we read the term and end of year reports, do we congratulate our child because he has managed to scrape through to the bottom half of the class and pat him on the back for doing well in P.E.only? Or do we walk away cursing our work colleague because his little brat has come first again? The very idea that competition per se is a bad thing is a ludicrous proposition and is antithetical to the whole concept of education and what it means for the future of our children. If competition is as bad as some would like us to believe, then private schools and colleges would lose their raison d'etre; they exist because they are perceived to be better than the apparently humdrum stuff provided by many state schools. Why spend so much money on private education otherwise if you can get the same thing for free elsewhere?
We will soon become a nation with proven expertise in oriental languages. Wonderful! We can now conquer the world with our mastery of Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, Marathi, etc. Have we gone mad? The whole world wants to learn English, Spanish and Mandarin because they are universally recognised as the languages of the future. People in India, Pakistan, and all other Asian countries are more interested in learning languages that will help provide a better professional future, whilst ensuring that family and linguistic traditions continue to flourish in the family environment. In Paradise Island, we have allowed loud mouthed representatives of socio-religious groups to dictate to us what languages can be taught in schools that are built and maintained by the taxpayer.
It is always wrong in a secular state to allow religious and socio-cultural bodies so much say in policy framing and implementation. By and large, these organisations represent a handful of self serving people and act only as platforms for despicable, ethno-centric opinions by the people who have appointed themselves as representatives of whole communities. They remain a constant danger to the social fabric of this nation and they never miss any opportunity to exaggerate and exacerbate communalistic differences.
The government ought to be bold enough to disregard the oriental languages as one of the 4 core subjects; they should revert to their status as optional subjects simply because their existence derives exclusively from cultural and religious preferences and their value is negligible in terms of future academic and vocational usefulness. Oriental languages are excellent in baitkas, mosques, temples, and at home; they should have no place in a national curriculum that is designed to shape the intellectual and vocational future of the citizens of a secular country.
The education debate has predictably turned into an 'us and them' battle; Hindus, Moslems, and Chinese are now supposed to be all in favour of competition whilst Creoles are apparently against it. And no one talks about the biggest competitive factor that ensures that those who can afford private tuition will invariably do better than the poor students depending on the goodwill of teachers to do what they are paid to do: complete the syllabus in the classroom. Are we really surprised with the high level of truancy when many students feel unwanted simply because they do not have the means to pay for what they should be getting free of charge?
The government should make it absolutely clear that it regards private tuition as immoral and mercenary, and designed entirely by teachers to profit handsomely from their manufactured indolence in the classroom. And it should ensure that teachers are contractually obliged to complete the syllabus in the classroom and well before students are due to sit their exams.
The third term could perhaps then revert to how it used to be in the old days: a time for teachers to help ALL the students with their revision in the classroom, and not just those who feel constrained to pay substantial amounts of money for the teachers' personal attention in his garage.
R.A.J.
Email: servipei@yahoo.com
Mauritius has one of the best educational systems in the Third World and the yearly S.C. and H.S.C. results attest to that. But they merely repeat the excellent results achieved when all colleges were fee paying institutions. Parents then took greater interest in how individual colleges were performing and whether the teachers were doing the job they were paid by them to do. Very few students paid for private tuition and the classroom, not the teacher's garage, was the proper place for teachers to expound their knowledge and to fully complete the syllabus. This ensured equality of opportunity for all students and prevented those with money to spare to gain an unfair advantage over those who believed that one of SSR's greatest achievements in providing free education would provide them with the same chances in life that poverty had hitherto denied them.
What has happened since education became free in 1976? An explosion in private tuition has benefited those who can afford the extortionate fees, and has given a very comfortable lifestyle to teachers who, in any event, already receive a substantial pay cheque every month from the state. And many parents who cannot afford these fees feel compelled to take loans so that their children can compete with their classmates on equal terms by taking advantage of this unofficial private education system. This is such a lucrative business that it is not uncommon to find science teachers operating their own private laboratories in their homes without any regard to Health and Safety regulations. I personally know several teachers who, often during official school hours, have whole classrooms in their homes on what appears to be a carefully managed shift system, with the queue for the next shift snaking from his courtyard into the road. Most of it is tax free as only an infinitesimal amount is ever declared to the fiscal authorities.
Why is this scandalous abuse of the education system allowed to continue? Ask students and they will tell you that often they have no choice but to enrol in private tuition classes because teachers somehow find it impossible/unable/unwilling to complete the syllabus in the classroom. This results in the vicious circle of students having to pay through the nose for lessons that are supposed to be free in order to keep up academically with their classmates.
All that free education has achieved is the transfer of parents' money in fees from the colleges into teachers' pockets.And the taxpayer continues to pick the tab for teachers' salaries and expenditure on infrastructure. It has resulted in a lowering of standards at classroom level and has compelled parents to pay privately the very same people responsible for the lowering of standards in the classroom. It also encourages teachers to manufacture 'free' periods to give them more time to accommodate their paying students at home. If people think I am being harsh on teachers, they must ask themselves this simple question: if your children were properly educated in the classroom and getting the full attention of the teacher, would there be a need for private tuition?
Everyone talks about it; it is like the elephant in the sitting room: we can all see it and know that it should not be there but we prefer to ignore such an incongruous state of affairs. We would rather complain amongst ourselves about our children having to wake up very early in the morning in order to attend private tuition classes and returning home late at night after evening paid tutorials. What are we doing to our children at such a sensitive stage of their development? No pedagogical expert on earth would tell you that a 12 hour day of formal education is beneficial. And yet, we insist on feeding a system that is intrinsically corrupt and which destroys the raison d'etre of the provision of free education. We end up with a system where parents are paying far more in tuition fees to teachers now than they ever paid colleges in the past for the education of their children! We have allowed a free education system to be manipulated into a privatised industry where teachers cash in at our expense not once but twice: first with a generous salary and holiday scheme and secondly by charging extortionate tuition fees to compensate for the artificially induced lacuna in classroom efficiency.
How can the children of poor people compete with those whose parents can afford the luxury of paying teachers for special treatment? How can they ever dream of achieving the same results as their more comfortable classmates when the syllabus is completed in the teachers' garage, a place where access is denied simply because their parents happen to be poor? How can they ever discover and participate in the marvelous world of l
My biggest concern with education in Mauritius has nothing to do with elite or national colleges; I am far more concerned with the lack of direction at the Ministry of Education, the unmitigated cowardice of most politicians to deal with the mercenary component of a supposedly 'free' education system, and the obsession with the latest trend. A vociferous minority is clamouring for our children to be taught in creole because apparently that is what an obscure United Nations document recommends as the magic bullet that will immediately transform the academic potential of all our children into gleaming certificates of achievement. Does anyone really believe this nonsense? The problem has never been the mode of language for teaching, but rather the quality and commitment of teachers. An education system that is based on doing the minimum in the classroom in order to attract the maximum number of paying customers for tuition at home is doomed to failure, irrespective of the language used to teach.
Some people claim that the idea of academic competition at a young age is wrong. Why? The premise that we do not want our own children to achieve their full academic potential and to be 'better' than their peers is absurd and goes against everything that parenthood stands for. Who amongst us does not stand proudly on Sports Day and make absolute fools of ourselves by loudly supporting our kids to beat their friends in every event that they compete? When we read the term and end of year reports, do we congratulate our child because he has managed to scrape through to the bottom half of the class and pat him on the back for doing well in P.E.only? Or do we walk away cursing our work colleague because his little brat has come first again? The very idea that competition per se is a bad thing is a ludicrous proposition and is antithetical to the whole concept of education and what it means for the future of our children. If competition is as bad as some would like us to believe, then private schools and colleges would lose their raison d'etre; they exist because they are perceived to be better than the apparently humdrum stuff provided by many state schools. Why spend so much money on private education otherwise if you can get the same thing for free elsewhere?
We will soon become a nation with proven expertise in oriental languages. Wonderful! We can now conquer the world with our mastery of Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, Marathi, etc. Have we gone mad? The whole world wants to learn English, Spanish and Mandarin because they are universally recognised as the languages of the future. People in India, Pakistan, and all other Asian countries are more interested in learning languages that will help provide a better professional future, whilst ensuring that family and linguistic traditions continue to flourish in the family environment. In Paradise Island, we have allowed loud mouthed representatives of socio-religious groups to dictate to us what languages can be taught in schools that are built and maintained by the taxpayer.
It is always wrong in a secular state to allow religious and socio-cultural bodies so much say in policy framing and implementation. By and large, these organisations represent a handful of self serving people and act only as platforms for despicable, ethno-centric opinions by the people who have appointed themselves as representatives of whole communities. They remain a constant danger to the social fabric of this nation and they never miss any opportunity to exaggerate and exacerbate communalistic differences.
The government ought to be bold enough to disregard the oriental languages as one of the 4 core subjects; they should revert to their status as optional subjects simply because their existence derives exclusively from cultural and religious preferences and their value is negligible in terms of future academic and vocational usefulness. Oriental languages are excellent in baitkas, mosques, temples, and at home; they should have no place in a national curriculum that is designed to shape the intellectual and vocational future of the citizens of a secular country.
The education debate has predictably turned into an 'us and them' battle; Hindus, Moslems, and Chinese are now supposed to be all in favour of competition whilst Creoles are apparently against it. And no one talks about the biggest competitive factor that ensures that those who can afford private tuition will invariably do better than the poor students depending on the goodwill of teachers to do what they are paid to do: complete the syllabus in the classroom. Are we really surprised with the high level of truancy when many students feel unwanted simply because they do not have the means to pay for what they should be getting free of charge?
The government should make it absolutely clear that it regards private tuition as immoral and mercenary, and designed entirely by teachers to profit handsomely from their manufactured indolence in the classroom. And it should ensure that teachers are contractually obliged to complete the syllabus in the classroom and well before students are due to sit their exams.
The third term could perhaps then revert to how it used to be in the old days: a time for teachers to help ALL the students with their revision in the classroom, and not just those who feel constrained to pay substantial amounts of money for the teachers' personal attention in his garage.
R.A.J.
Email: servipei@yahoo.com
Spread The Word
6 Responses to "Education: The transmogrification of a noble vocation into a mercenary enterprise." 
|
said this on 18 May 2008 6:55:25 PM MUT
He has already a powerful brain.
|
Author)|
said this on 18 May 2008 2:51:52 PM MUT
we should start paying for schools and hospitals am sure we will get a better service and we can invest the money else where
|
|
said this on 18 May 2008 4:46:22 AM MUT
R.A.J. is becoming the conscience of Mauritians and the voice of the voiceless. More power to you, Sir.
|
|
said this on 17 May 2008 9:50:05 AM MUT
R.A.J. You have touched on so many issues. Let me share my own experience.25 years ago I asked my excellent Maths teacher at Sir Rampersad Neerunjun College whether he gave private tuition and to which he replied whether the work load was not sufficient. I was so obsessed with this private tuition that I took tuition from another teacher when in reality I never had time to complete my school homework.
My friend who sat next to me got a B in Maths without any tuition and I got a C. |
|
said this on 17 May 2008 1:24:56 AM MUT
thats right we just wasting money and no government has the guts to do something great articles R.A.J wake up people of mauritius
|
