The emergence of strategies in education, or rather the potential reviewing of the practice in schooling, is one that the population has inherited from time immemorial, from the colonial days of the British rule. After the country attained its independence, it appeared that, in order to demarcate from what we had inherited and continued to practice, it had become high time that we looked for alternatives that we consider conducive to ‘‘our relevant progress’’ in a novel approach.

It is well known that in countries attaining independence, this becoming fashionable in around the 1950s in Africa and Asia, and elsewhere, authorities and the populations at large, for whatever reason, entertained a thirst for change in numerous fields in order to ascertain that the achievement of independence should tally with a new sense of patriotism, to result in changes that are considered more relevant to self-government. Alternative or change in education is one of those fields.

We suddenly become all devoted to significant and visible ‘‘improvement’’ in the approaches to practice in our schools, probably convinced that the inherited existence of it is considered out of place or even anachronistic, an education the content of it as well as the delivery being seen as not meeting the aspiration of the population, now that our country is independent as well as a Republic. It has become imperative that this multicultural nation should break away from the existing system of education, so to say, imposed by the previous colonial government. In order to illustrate the irrelevance of the colonial education, children at the primary school were taught to sing ‘‘God save the King’’ or ‘‘Nos ancêtres les Gaulois’’.

We also know that people are generally resistant to change, often preferring to maintain their sense of comfort and avoiding the unpredictability of ventures deemed risky. At the primary school level, there were then long courses of two years and short courses of one year, run for student teachers at then Teachers Training College, situated in Beau-Bassin. Potential teachers of the primary schools used to follow a once for-all concept of training. Subsequently, no refresher courses were provided and the ‘‘qualified’’ teachers had to fend for themselves for the rest of their teaching career. No preprimary schools existed in any official capacity, except perhaps, on a private basis outside the control of the then Education Department as it was called.

‘‘Improved’’ system

Changes were known to be often not initiated. For the good reason that people generally cherished the satisfaction of the existing reality, and did not want any risk of venturing in what was considered unfamiliar.

Then came the independence of the country, celebrated on the 12th of March 1968 (next year it will be 50 years since Mauritius achieved Independence from the British rule). Now the population seems to worry about or made to worry, how our children could best be educated within an ‘‘improved’’ system of education; the children of an independent country that also ultimately became a Republic in 1992. Critics begin to raise questions about improvement in teaching methods in schools; changes in strategies for the better, with their ongoing rhetorics on the scourge of private tuitions, on too much stress on our children, on teachers often considered too authoritarian and punitive in their approaches to teaching, among others. However, we do understand that no amount of talking only can result in any changes for the better taking place, unless the talking is done by people expert enough to articulate significant positive reform in a scientific way. That also should take place within the conciliatory context of what the population will accept. In other words, one must take into consideration that proposals should be initiated within what people will accept and not what they would reject (take the issue of kreol to be in the curriculum, for example, that can be controversial – this issue is not part of our discussion here). We can never wash down their throat, if the people do not want something, anything.

So much has been said about the need to reduce, or at least to minimise, stress in our children. This notion of stress has often led to proposal that teachers should act as mere guides, facilitators for school children, and that teachers should not be invasive when dealing with children, believing the pupils to be in full control of what they learn – maybe also what they do not to learn? That anything else on the part of the teachers could cause them to be branded as agents of indoctrination, and that that can be anathema to learning in children. There you are, under the guise of being facilitators, and not interfering with the children’s ‘‘freedom’’, the teachers often become what would be termed as relieved of the role of formal teaching that might be interpreted as too much unwanted interference with the children who must not be indoctrinated – this aspect is often interpreted by many.

However, the question that comes to my mind is: is stress at all harmful for the children during the process of their development? The answer is NO. We understand that there can be negative or painful stress inculcated by the teachers (in this case the not too successful teachers and also parents at home who perpetuate the same approach, unfortunately).

In both these two situations, the negative stress is harmful and has to be avoided at all cost. But there is also a brand of stress that might be termed POSITIVE. A positive stress cannot be harmful. It is beneficial. Under the name of positive stress, I maintain that a stringent formal teaching of facts and knowledge has to be introduced by the teacher who is expert in the practice of ‘‘leading the children’’. A teacher can make teaching informative and interesting to school children while imparting the formal content of the curriculum. He can help children to digest, appreciate and happily learn the contents of the programme at school. The teacher can possess the art of successful teaching devoid of the need to be punitive – an inherent quality that the experienced and good teacher happily put into practice.

Those teachers who do not yet possess the art should proceed towards acquiring it. Such is the nature of positive stress, and the children certainly welcome it. They are being motivated in this kind of albeit stressful situation. Stress and motivation can go hand in hand, provided such a situation is properly handled in spite of the semblance of paradox. Children at school can be groomed to like, love, become hard-working (therein comes the need to introduce refresher courses for teachers). Formal teaching is important. There’s a strong need for a formal curriculum. To start with the importance of focus on the basics especially in the earlier primary years.

We can take the successful case of Japan, Singapore, South Korea, where teachers are required to focus on teaching the essential knowledge and skills as directed by the stringent curriculum content. Research clearly favours that primary school children need to memorise time tables, mental arithmetics, the rules of grammar, spelling and sentence construction, until their power of recall becomes automatic.

Confused children

Hence, it is a kind of explicit basic teachings where it is the prerogative of the class teachers on the formal activities in the classroom. This situation absolutely cannot be branded as undesirable stress. (The OECD director himself has concluded that the initial focus with children should be ensuring all pupils achieve a baseline level of proficiency in reading and mathematics instead of technology. It is a fact that there can be good teaching and bad teaching. In other words, there are good teachers and those not up to standards. The bad teachers are those who, the more they teach, the more they confuse the children.

There cannot here be comment on the expected Nine- Year Schooling (as things would otherwise be too lengthy). Yet, judging from the approach of it, I can only personally briefly comment that this Nine-Year Schooling appears to be simply a cosmetic change that hardly differentiates itself from the system that has existed. The implementation of the Nine-Year Schooling has clearly been done as a result of mere assumption rather than ‘‘clear sightedness’’.

Nevertheless, the success of it can be seen only in time, provided an accompanying revision in teaching strategies, a sustained and ongoing teacher education, and even updating the education of the teacher-educators i.e. at the tertiary level. Otherwise, the nature of education will certainly remain statu-quo, remaining the same only harbouring a change in name, nothing else. So long as innovations are handled by unqualified agents with so-called advisers who often are the right persons in the wrong place, nothing much can be achieved.

This reminds me of a moment when one minister of Education approached me personally while I was the head of the School Of Education, and confessed to me that he was not an education man, that he was an accountant man. He sought my advice. It is an event that is still seared in my mind. Furthermore, a tentative conclusion would perhaps be: for the sake of progress to take place in education, we should do away with political infighting (for example, each Minister or previous minister declaring that Education is his baby). Education should be given bipartisan support rather than being used as a political tug-of-war; to be vigorously accompanied by the advice of experts.