| | L’idéal égalitaire | | | | Modifier la taille du texte: | A | | | A | | |
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| | Par:- Raj Meetarbhan
On 10/02/2010 |
C’est à une véritable révolution éducative qu’invite le ministre Vasant Bunwaree. Après avoir enclenché un processus qui mènera à la disparition du CPE dans sa forme actuelle, le voilà qui affiche une détermination à en finir avec l’élitisme au secondaire. Il a confirmé hier l’abolition du système des lauréats. Rien de moins.
L’approche de l’actuel ministre de l’Education contraste avec celle de son prédécesseur, Dharam Gokhool. Celui-ci avait une vision de l’éducation qui favorisait les élèves qui sont déjà favorisés. Ainsi, il a restitué la sélection par l’échec au CPE. Or, depuis deux ans la politique éducative du pays s’inscrit dans une logique plus égalitaire. L’introduction du contrôle continu et l’interdiction faite aux instituteurs de 4e de donner des leçons vont dans ce sens. Et maintenant, c’est au tour du dernier bastion de l’élitisme de tomber : les lauréats du HSC.
En fait, la réforme du HSC avait été annoncée dès l’arrivée de Vasant Bunwaree à l’Education. Cependant, il ne s’est pas exprimé sur la question depuis longtemps. On pouvait craindre que l’opposition des syndicalistes rétrogrades avait tempéré ses ardeurs réformatrices. La position qu’il a annoncé hier rassure. Le souci du ministre n’est pas de former des élites brillantes. Sa réforme, si elle est appliquée, garantira l’accès à l’enseignement supérieur à un grand nombre d’élèves qui ont réussi au HSC, dont beaucoup seront issus de famille pauvres.
Ce n’est pas équitable, ni socialement acceptable, qu’une trentaine d’étudiants mauriciens, les lauréats du HSC, obtiennent des bourses pour aller étudier dans des universités prestigieuses en Grande-Bretagne ou en Australie tandis qu’une fraction importante d’élèves ayant réussi au secondaire ne peuvent pas poursuivre leurs études à Maurice, faute de moyens ou par manque de place à l’Université de Réduit. Peuton considérer comme normal que quelques dizaines d’élèves, fussent-ils brillants, absorbent autant de ressources alors que tant d’autres sont poussés vers la sortie ?
Si le projet envisagé par Vasant Bunwaree aboutit, 300 étudiants profiteraient d’un financement intégral de leurs études universitaires à Maurice. Ces bourses seront allouées selon le mérite et suivant des critères géographiques. La principale critique des conservateurs envers la réforme projetée du HSC est infondée. Ils arguent que le pays pâtira si son élite scolaire est formée à l’UoM. Mais savent-ils que, de toute façon, la moitié des boursiers qui sont formés à l’étranger ne retournent pas au pays pour le servir? En outre, les critiques ne tiennent pas compte du fait que la suppression des bourses «undergraduate » permettra l’allocation d’un nombre supérieur de bourses «post graduate» pour des études à l’étranger.
Le ministère de l’Education, affirme, sur son site officiel que “An important national priority is to increase participation in tertiary education from the present Gross Tertiary Enrolment Rate of 17% to about 30% in the medium term”. La fin du système des lauréats sera le commencement de l’exécution de ce dessein.
Raj MEETARBHAN, Rédacteur en chef, l’express
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| brijjb | | | 1 abolish ranking,
2 ban the system that produces bright brains(diabolize teachers giving private tuition and diabolize bright students coming out first
3 congratulate the lazy ones through ZEP!
4 do not pressurize lazy students if they made small paper planes from pages of the books that ministry gave to them free of charge & also do not pressurize them if the ministry paid for their SC/HSC exams for which they did not sit. Instead, do not bring these issues to conversations. Also do not worry how much tax payers money is thus wasted
With Bunwaree, Mauritius IS BECOMING A PARADISE FOR THE LAZY ONES! Bunwaree has become a good spokesman for these incompetents who are afraid of competition! | | | MoralScientist | | | J-C Leblanc,
Thanks for the compliment. You are right to caution that you hope that my argument is well understood. In this surrealist early-Third Millenium era when commentators on blogs (and even at least one US politician who is fully aware that he is in the galre of the media’s limelight) evoke the possibility of bombing the 2 million Muslims gathered in Mecca during their annual Hadj pilgrimage, we can, on an occasion such as this, dispense with unwarranted timidity. In a recent comment on a blogged news article about the Catholic Church’s initiative to promote family values, I wrote the following : “Especially, don't unthinkingly overdo the "Kreol-as-medium-of-instruction-propaganda": it will be perceived as a weapon to wound others rather than an instrument for self-advancement. Instead, everybody would be better advised to emulate the Asians in encouraging ...family solidarity, respect for elders, thrift, compassion but also discipline and a firm hand in dealing with deviance. It serves no purpose to blame others, to lead the parasitic life, to engage in subversion, to constantly look for handouts, even to blackmail others.” Evidently, warped minds, instead of taking the extremely well-intentioned advice, sought, instead to hurt the good Samaritan. Like a patient using the boost of energy that The Almighty still blesses him with while he is on the operation table being operated on by a good-hearted surgeon to grab the surgeon’s scalpel and plunge it in his heart! We now hear arguments like “ Il ne s’agit pas de leur (a ceux qui negligent deliberement de prendre leur responsabilite) jeter la pierre”. One hates to have to tell them that those Irish Catholic priests who, for decades, covered up for the abuse of children, must have used the same type of argument to rationalize their outrageous behaviour.
| | | Amar | | | Soyons honnête,L'ile Maurice a connu le development avec le systéme actuel même s'il est un peu depassé avec les normes d'aujourd'hui. Je dit oui pour un changement mais pas radicalement sur tous les échelles. On ne peut abolir le systéme d'élitisme. Oui on peut encourager les élites de revenir servir leur patrie aprés leurs études dans une façon ou d'autres. Que les gouverneurs se montre un peu plus entreprenant dans ce qu'ils font!! Qu'ils donnent des exemples à ceux jeunes au lieu de se soucier du pouvoir absolu!!! Que cesse le business de petit copain ou de famille!!! | | | Emiliano Z | | | Kan enn dimunn p bien fer, bizin aplodi. Bravo Bunwaree. Good initiative. | | | J-C Leblanc | | | yes, well done moral scientist , I hope your argument is well understood .. we do not want a back to the past pre 1960s times | | | J-C Leblanc | | | non a la censure ausssi, mons. webmaster.
NDLR: Il n'y a pas de censure dans le sens que vous semblez suggérer. Editing is necessary. If u read some of the original comments sent to us, u will surely agree that some editing is necessary. | | | J-C Leblanc | | | Mons mitarbwan , voyez plus loin... comment promouvoir l'intellegience, comment aider la meritocratie? notre pays a progressé grace au systeme d'education, grace a l'intelligence et le travail , grace a l'encourgement pour toujour faire mieux, la competition nous aide , regardez le singapour, le japon, l'inde , et tous ces pays tigres asiatiques.... nous devons encourager la compettition educative.... non a l'ideologie demodée ... ce que vous precomnisez créera plus d'inegalité... cuex qui peuvent se permettre le BOCAGE pour leurs enfants continueront ,, mais le reste doivent avoir le systeme de merite et de la competition... | | | Un medecin laureat du RCC | | | If giving money to Laureates to go to Australia or England ceases, so be it. What is England? What is the West? Why do we regard them from below? I reckon we're smarter, as Mauritians, than them.
On the other hand, it is stupid and unfair to abolish the concept of Laureate. A Laureate, like me, is not an individual. The Laureate is an ideal, it supports a system that makes hundreds, if not thousands, strive to work harder, do better. It is not just money. It is wisdom, prestige, intelligence, fame, recognition. SO STOPPING THE MONEY IS OK, BUT STOPPING THE REST IS SIMPLY AND PURELY STUPID. IT IS A STEP BACKWARDS.
Reform the system, send Laureates to the University of Mauritius, that's fine. But abolish the concept of Laureate altogether, and I will have to do like my friend Paul and call you a "petit cretin". | | | le sheriff | | | Bravo Bunwaree, ce que tu preconise est tres louable et va dans le sens de l'equité et de l'egalité. pa peur twa, to pou eli en tete de liste dans Mahebourg. To enn dimoune ki pe pran bann mesures korek pou le pep. Aster to bizin introduire kreol dan lekol. ce sera le couronnement de ta carrière. Bravo Bravo. | | | Em | | | The reform of an education system in any country should be of paramount importance to its population. Whilst I agree that bursaries to an elite few has to be abolished, I would like to invite the readers to think of different ways of encouraging intellectual and artistic developments of youths. Any mauritian who has travelled abroad will tell you what a beneficial experience living in a different country can be. Travelling broadens the mind, the government should I believe create a fund where prospective students who wish to further their studies in another country, benefit from a grant for a specific period of time. Let's say for a year. I am confident this scheme will prove highly beneficial to our youths and the country. Not every family in Mauritius can afford such expenses, therefore if we all pay our taxes dutifully, then some tax money should rightfully be spent in such grants. | | | MoralScientist | | | While I fully agree with the Bunwaree reforms concerning restrictions on private tuition and the abolition of highly-expensive scholarships for education overseas, the encouragement of merit and excellence should not be conflated with the predatory aspect attributed to “elitism”. The idea of an equal society is insane. Equality is of OPPORTUNITY. The responsibility to seize on the opportunity in a sustainable way rests with the individuals themselves. In the first two opening pages of his Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize winner “Guns, Germs and Steel”, Jared Diamond offers an evident but rarely-admitted factor explaining the unequal development of peoples and of nations, what he calls “Yali’s Question”. Yali, a highly intelligent but poorly-educated politician in Papua-New Guinea, asked the visiting field research evolutionary biologist, Jared Diamond: “Why is it that you white people developed so much ‘cargo’ and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people have little cargo of our own?” Yali’s people had reached New Guinea and settled there over 10,000 years ago. Yet, they had not managed to develop their society and were still living in the Stone Age, using stone tools that were superseded in Europe 1,000 years ago by better tools. The Europeans had ‘discovered’ Papua-New Guinea only 200 years ago. They had brought ‘cargo’ of steel axes, medicine, matches, clothing and soft drinks, with which they had easily won over the local population. They had smoothly imposed their European system. And they were now about to be exploiting Papua-New Guinea’s rich mining resources on the cheap. Both Yali and Jared knew that New Guineans were at least as smart as Europeans. So, why is it that white people developed so much ‘cargo’ and brought it to New Guinea, but Yali’s black people have little ‘cargo’ of their own? Jared Diamond’s book provides rather convincing, but partial answers to this question, with such provocatively-titled chapters as “How China Became Chinese?” or “How Africa Became Black?” But, the argument of the book overlooks the fact that Yali’s question was naively simplistic. Yali’s question flies in the face of the evidence, for example, that, while it is true that, when Che Guevara went to Bolivia in the 1960’s to help that poorest of Latin American countries to liberate its people from white colonial serfdom, he was betrayed to the Americans by those very people he had wanted to liberate, today’s native Bolivians, under the leadership of Evo Morales, are valiantly asserting their independence and self-confidence. They are successfully taking charge of their economic, social and political development. The existing moderate inequality among the various sections of Mauritian society who do not hail from the hyper-capitalist colonial-era, economic-power-monopolizing families, is not the result of cynical exploitation, but of sustained effort and discipline. For those that have been left behind, often the cause of this drag is that they have not yet developed and fully internalized the discipline that would make possible the mindset, the work habits, the emotional make-up that renders possible a culture where they produce their own ‘cargo’ on a sustainable basis. It takes a lot of time to acquire such mindsets. For some it may take less than a generation; for others it may take a generation or two. In the case of yet others, they may not really want to make the transition. In the same way that I don’t want to use Facebook or Twitter. Too much bother. And it brings more headache than it makes life pleasant. Those who try to sabotage the larger, more noble Government project to democratize the economy by diverting the glare of the lights to the very moderate inequality among the non-colonial-masters-related groups are criminal saboteurs and subversives. The Government should deal very severely with them. The Government should also not waste valuable “cargo” to placate anybody. | | | Veejay Muckoon | | | I think the Minister is taking a good initiative and he should be supported by all. More students will benefit from higher education and the country as a whole will benefit. | |
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