| Mauritius
may be a small island, but it's like a war zone when
we talk about education. From a very young age, we
are taught that education is the most important thing
in our life, and that we have to study hard to reach
for the stars. The school year in Mauritius is just
like in Britain, that is from January to early November,
depending on the grades. The educational life of a
Mauritian is broken down into 3 major stages. The
primary education part and the secondary education
is divided into 2 major parts, all of them completed
with a decisive set of examinations that decide the
fate of the Mauritian student.
Primary
Education:
~
Major examination: Certificate of Primary Education
(CPE) ~
Everyone
has to go to primary school (in U.S it's called elementary
school) for six years (we call it Standard One
to Standard Six). At the end of Standard Six,
everyone has to take a major examination, the CPE,
that will decide which high school (we call it college)
that one will be able to attend for the next seven
years of Secondary education (our grades are called
Form One to Form Six Upper). For the
CPE, we are all assigned a rank depending on our scores
in our subjects which usually consisted of four core
subjects, Mathematics, English, French and Environmental
Studies. Our high schools are classified in different
categories, and the best are dubbed 'Star Colleges.'
Of course, everyone's goal is to be ablet to go to
these high schools. Every year there are around 30,000
students competing in the CPE, and only the first
1,000 will be able to attend those 'Star Colleges'.
Usually, those who don't get a good rank after the
CPE, drop out of schools and don't go for secondary
education.
Secondary
Education:
~
First Major examination: Cambridge O-Level School
Certificate ~
After
this whole sorting process at the end of primary school,
the Mauritian student who managed to get into a 'Star
College' now has to thrive to prepare for the most
important examination of their educational life. But,
first the student has a lot to do, study, choose and
prepare and the O-Level School Certificate exam is
a way to decide whether he or she is on the right
track, or become a potential laureat. For the first
three years of secondary school (in high school),
that we call Form One to Form three, students are
given the chance to try all possible subjects, Mathematics,
Advanced Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology,
Economics, Accounting, Arts, Design and Technology,
languages, literature and many others. During those
three years we take at least 11 different subjects
and on the fourth year (Form four) we cut it down
to 8 subjects, where we choose the final path we want
before trying to compete for the laureat. At this
point, there are several paths, several sides for
the Mauritian student to pick. There is the Science
Side, the most praised and hardest side, the Economics
Side, the Technical Side and the Art
Side. By choosing three main subjects, we choose
our side, for example if you pick Mathematics, Physics
and Design and Technology, we go for the Technical
side, while a student taking Mathematics, Physics
and Chemistry goes for the Schience side, and so on.
So, when we reach Form five, everyone has to take
the O-Level School Certificate examination, where
the 8 subjects we pick are graded on a 1 - 9 scale,
where 1 is the best. The best 6 grades are summed
up and the lowest and the best one can achieved is
of course 6 units. The O-Level definitely gives you
a solid indication whether you are a potential laureat,
and some students even use that to switch high school
to better ones.
~
Second Major examination: Cambride A-Level Higher
School Certificate ~
Finally,
after the O-Level examinations, there are only two
more years in a Mauritian high school students. Those
last two years, called Form Six Lower and Form Six
Upper, is the pivotal point of the individual's professional
life. For A-Level, we have to reduce our number of
courses to only 5 to further concentrate on our technical
sides. At the end of Form Six Upper, the student takes
the A-Level HSC examination and competes to be a laureat
in his/her respective field. The laureat will be awarded
a scholarship by the government of Mauritius to go
for further studies. Unfortunately, there are strict
quotas assigned by the government for the numbers
of laureat slots in every side, for instance, there
are 7 slots for the Science Side, 4 for the Economics
Side, 2 for Technical Side and others. Therefore,
out of around 6,000 students taking part in the A-Level
HSC exam, only the first 30 will be awarded scholarships
and the rest are given only one more chance to compete
for a laureat spot the next year. From this it is
clear that chance is a key factor in our Mauritian
educational system. The scores of the laureat and
the non-laureat can differ by a couple of points;
one becomes laureat while the other's opportunities
are instantly limited although both studied equally
hard throughout life. |
