Wait, what did I actually learn at primary school? Maths and languages… Does it mean that the (nearly) half who fail CPE aren’t worth going to college? Not everyone is good at math and languages (I’m omitting EVS – now as art, and a few more)…

A more appropriate selection of subject is the large choice you get in Form 1 to Form 3… That’s when you get to know if you’re going to be in one stream and in which one you’re good. That’s where I say the competition should be. CPE level is too harsh for 11 year old children. At 14, they’re more ready for that kind of competition.

People have tried to remove CPE and then introduce them back. Tried to make regional schools and HSC schools. They were flawed. Flawed because of the little time the kids get to adapt to their new school and the lack of proper selection post SC level. Simply grading isn’t enough. So many were not able to perform in these HSC schools…

My ideal solution is to

• CPE leads you to middle schools, equipped to do Form 1 to Form 3 only, with a variety of subjects. Regional – not the huge zone 2 that covers from Beau Bassin to Trou d’Eau Douce. Smaller ones. Say district or population based. This will reduce fatigue and dropout at CPE level, as well as reduce traffic jam.
• Middle Schools lead to High Schools that have Form 4-5 to Lower 6-Upper 6. There would be specific schools for each stream: science schools, economics, arts, humanities. Still leading to the same SC and HSC but say a science school would have better equipped labs, specialised teachers, larger library for humanities, theatres and workshops for arts… A lot of money would be saved since Middle Schools would not have as much facilities. Better resource utilisation.

These High Schools would also give the children enough time to develop a sense of belonging during these four years. Even a culture of middle-high school would develop, from a limited vast middle school to a specialised high school.

I’d say it’s possible in Mauritius. We hear of the coming national Form 3 exams… It’s not enough I say. In my above suggestions, CPE will slowly lose it’s importance in favour of Form 3, and ideally we’ll have less dropouts and more people doing things that they really liked. They’d be discovering their aptitudes earlier in life, and that in itself leads to greater productivity in the long run, for the betterment of Mauritius.

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According to my research on Google, they put only 9 buses on the 222 route and 10 in the 226 (Rempart-Curepipe) as per a couple of years ago. Imagine with all the crowd waiting and rushing to get buses in the morning. They could easily have put an extra 3 buses from 6-8 am and from 3-5 pm. But no, you have to rush, the conductor will stop you cause the buses go FULL during that time with standing. On some days, there are more than 20 standings. Not legal, but as a service, I personally would prefer to be standing than to go late at work/uni. Thanks to the conductors for understanding. But too often during the past 10 years have I seen 222 buses come and go and not taking people – there simply aren’t enough buses on this route! And they talk about not profitable… Mismanagement as we all saw in the newspapers? And who suffers? Everyday commuters like everyone without a car/lift!

It’s great time that either NTC becomes a private company, where the management should do an entensive survey on all the routes offered to find out on which ones more buses are needed, and which ones less. Secondly, proper maintenance to be done on the buses (imagine seeing older UBS, TBS buses being in better conditions!). And then liberalise the routes. Competitions Act is already here. Monopoly on routes should be illegalised (if that word exists), especially on the 222 route!

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However, there are some teachers who abuse of their positions, to enjoy themselves, make money on tuitions – thus making a bad name for themselves. There are a few examples of those, like Mr X who threatens his students to take tuition with him, or else he will give them bad marks. Poor students do not know what to do, and many indeed do pay for tuition, while attending other teachers tuition – that’s because Mr B. is a very bad teacher according to what those students tell me (compared to other teachers). I won’t mention the full name (I would if I had the video testimonials of those students), but hey, you would have guessed that it’s among one of the colleges in the region… I wonder why such a disgrace is still in the education system, would he have support from other people? Don’t any of his colleagues report him? What about parents, don’t their children tell about this teacher? It’s Cambridge who’ll give your ultimate marks, not that disgrace.

Heard about another teacher who squeezes the maximum number of students in his tuition classes for exorbitant tuition fees (for rural areas that is… anyway, fees in towns have always been higher)… Say, he has been a good teacher years ago. But does he really get time to really help each student with a few batches of 40 per day? If yes, he’s a hero, sinon…

Well, I do offer some lectures part-time an a tertiary institutions, and have many teachers friends from state secondary schools. It is a minority of lazy teachers who do bad, and the rest have to bear the bad word of mouth from parents around the region…

Rest assured that there are many good teachers in the region as well, and that’s a relief to hear. I know friends from from the North and central plateau who used to come to Lallmatie, Bon Accueil, Brisée Verdière for tuition (hey I didn’t say it’s a bad thing). These teachers make us proud and really help the students

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So often, I get ideas of what I can write, or what should be said (like many people had predicted today’s traffic problems with the 3 pm ending time for colleges – it’s another thing that it might be solved today… we said it before… much before…). So from now on, I’ll write on… Show the world, you, and expect comments, critics, etc… Spam? Except Spam…

Speaking of the traffic problem, if ‘they’ really want to keep the 3 pm, why not increase the working time for government agencies to 4.30 pm? Anyway, they’re already getting more pay since this year’s PRB – and we’re still working harder, and for longer hours in the private sector, and still running the economy…

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