School used to bore me. For most of the time I spent there, I considered it to be a prison confining young bodies and minds within four walls for seemingly endless hours where we would be trained to learn everything by heart. This suited most of those around me perfectly but the idea of being a parrot never tempted me much, so I chose to remain human.

This meant that I was often the only carefree soul amidst frenzied ones which allowed me to keep my mind fully functional, or on a more comparative style, to paraphrase Kipling’s opening line of If, I was keeping my head when all about me were losing theirs. In my high school years, my understanding of the academic world had not changed.

I was in one of the “Star Colleges” where “la crème de la crème” was pooled and subsequently pitched against each other. Throughout these formative years, I witnessed some humorous incidents that still bring a smile to my face as I pen this column learners crying because they were not in the premier position in class, mindless competition between my peers resulting in depression or the greater belief in God.

As from the age of 16, the uncompetitive nature of my world seemed too appealing to make the journey to cold Curepipe every morning. Instead, I read everything that I could find at home. Luckily for me, my parents being both teachers, I had innumerable classics to choose from. And thus I discovered Poe and Faulkner among others. And
I was happy being as I was… doing what I loved to do. Not everyone shared my happiness though. I quickly learned that the system treated ‘nonchalant’ beings who were disenchanted with the memorised learning process as ‘rebellious misfi ts’ that had to be reformed. And who else to carry this noble task of administering the cold verdict than some unthinking teachers who had decided that if you did well you were intelligent and if you could not be moulded into a robot, you had to be treated with such encouraging lines that would do wonders to your confidence ‘Sa sujet la pou ban intelligents sa. Ou pou fail ou’.

No longer do I bear any grudge against those instructors. This so-called tradition of excellence which consists solely in the transforming of children into trained monkeys has been perpetuating itself long before my passage in academia and unless we get serious about it, shall continue in the future.

The myriad of issues that is correlated to the appropriateness of a country’s education system is daunting. The creation of mechanical beings that are only concerned about themselves and who like modern Daedaluses are proud of their own attainments and whose sole satisfaction in life consists in adorning some copies of paper credentials on their walls while remaining indifferent as the world around them sinks further into decadence.

An absence of interest in active citizenship where many prefer dowsing themselves in networking on Friday evenings exchanging visiting cards in vain attempts of avoiding what they loathe most: anonymity. Instead of thinking how we could do something for that country of ours and reject the status quo. I look at this young democracy of ours with its ever-increasing number of educated citizens but few of them bothering to think and question issues. Unconcerned about what is happening around them, only preoccupied about climbing the corporate ladder.

All we need is a bit of soul in our lives…and it starts with the way we raise our children.

Chetan Ramchurn