Blog: A sick Limb of a weak Body

The MMM invention of the prevocational stream was well intentioned but very poorly implemented. This stream was sheltered in state secondary schools together with mainstream Form 1 students, made to share uniforms, teachers, Rector but doomed to suffer from all as unworthy heirs of a of a recalcitrant parent.

Mainstream students felt ashamed of wearing the same uniform as failed ex-classmates. Teachers looked down upon these students as unworthy of frequenting a school because their own fate was frozen in terms of promotion and advancement vis-a-vis peers in the mainstream.

Many rectors felt the prevocational stream were better orphaned and these classes had nuisance value. The curriculum had been prepared by amateurish writers catapulted to the status of Inspectors because they had no other place to occupy after the closure of Technical schools. If we need an example of a healthy policy torpedoed by poor pedagogy, absence of accountability, the prevocational stream distinguishes itself.

By dint of trying to raise the achievement of those children to the CPE level, teachers failed miserably to drag the majority out of illiteracy and innumeracy. The application of a project method misunderstood by teachers and, therefore, ill applied led to a waste of instructional time. The policy of the project method sounded convincing to those who were already won to the cause but could not be transferred to the class in a sustained manner.

The concept of knowledge as one through which the child develops his acquaintance with different disciplines is not current in Mauritian classes and many teachers adopted their own curriculum to suit their purpose.

They killed time luxuriously and saw to it that the cohort of prevocational students needed a third year. When the linear curriculum came back to the class, the prevocational stream had got used to neglect, indifference and an absence of policy regarding pedagogy, monitoring and evaluation.

Assessments were carried out and certificates were dished out as decorative gifts rewarding these who had attended courses. These certificates were yet another symbol of the emotional excess of our policy makers who have always wanted to rehabilitate the vulnerable and make him feel at par with others.

Any proposal that might incrementally improve teacher performance, review the curriculum not only met with the stinginess of authorities but also confronted the total indifference of politicians to make of failed students their priority. Priority would mean having a genuinely prevocational stream. The cheapest strategy was the traditional literacy and numeracy classes with a smattering of Art and Design to give the impression of a will to orientate the students to technical subjects.

Much of what was taught went above the grasp of the children because the language, subject matter, mode of transmission did not match the child's ability to understand.

Very few teachers in our system can teach weak students. Most teachers act out the syllabus with the board as their main prop. Take away the textbook. The teacher crumbles like withered peel of a fruit.

What do the reforms proposed this year at prevocational level contribute to the improvement of the system? After seven unfruitful years at Primary level, children who have failed CPE twice are expected to spend four more years to acquire literacy and numeracy skills, to learn a few lifeskills at the hands of the teachers who are the most incompetent to cultivate such skills as empathy, discipline of mind, critical thinking, moral balance etc. For the first time these children will be exposed to the rudiments of trade skills. In fact this is what they should have been exposed to according to the nomenclature of the stream. But then these children of lesser gods have obtained crumbs left after their more fortunate counterparts have eaten the bread. Now that there seems to exist a genuine interest in the fate of 4,000 of our children from the CPE cohort every year, let there be certain prerequisites for the reform to produce positive results.

A. The attendance of every student in prevocational must be monitored. I do not know if social workers still exist in ZEP schools. Their assistance can be solicited to eke out the child from home or other pleasure grounds to attend school. The Rector must provide a monthly return of absences with reasons diagnosed.

B. The curriculum must be rewritten-mainly with the help of practicing teachers who have a superior sense of teaching their subject. MIE lecturers who spend their time teaching teachers are not apt for this exercise.

They may act as curriculum supervisors not as writers. The curriculum must start from the real point of attainment of the child who comes to the first year of the prevoc stream, not from what he is supposed to know. Curriculum writers must avoid the option of repeating the Primary curriculum at Prevocational level.

C. Teaching learners with difficulties is a task for which the teacher must be trained. The difficulties may be cognitive, affective, the child may be suffering from emotional disorder causing attention deficit. That is why the teacher must combine qualities from different disciplines of expertise before assuming the responsibility of such a class. The average teacher will not do for such a task. That is why up to now prevocational streams have failed miserably. The bureaucratic approach to teaching can only alienate the child further and further from learning.

The Ministry of Education has up to now paid a deaf ear to the crying need to revolutionize teaching. Here it is not a new curriculum that is needed. How does the prevocational child think?

The Bureau D'education Catholique seems to think that if you replace English by Kreol you have solved all problems. Nothing could have been more simplistic.

Every school must have a pedagogical unit to share, discuss and solve learning problems. It has taken 6 years to turn a child with common endowments into an illiterate. Let us not labour under the illusion that this child who has grown up with a thousand prejudices and complexes will regain normalcy in two years.

Pedagogy will be the most important area of reform in the Prevocational stream.

D. Many children from this sector come from the poorer sectors of society where education does not enjoy a high place in the hierarchy of needs. Another area of challenge is the type of school organization that can act as a surrogate for the home. We have examples of individuals who have started from such origins and have been saved and salvaged in the process. There are few cases in Mauritius of masses of neglected children who have been recuperated by the "proselytizing" effect of education.

Education can transform what the teacher can engage the child's emotional, moral cultural being at the same time as his intellectual growth. The reform is doomed to push hundreds to failure if these children are not allowed to cultivate self esteem.

How much is the state ready to spend on trade skills? Let us not like the MMM, make an apologetic presence of technical education which again remains academic. The child must learn to aspire to be a good plumber, a car mechanic, an adult who blends technology with a passion for creation of artefacts needing manipulative skills. We must bring back dignity of self reliance in the child.

The Prevocational reform involves the awakening of our authorities to the potential residing in all these children whom our system has called 'rejects'. Our teachers, our school leaders must reinvent themselves by the resurgence of a faith in the genius in every child, laureate or not.