SACMEQ Policy Research: Report No. 1 Series Editor: Kenneth N. Ross The quality of education: some policy suggestions based on a survey of schools Mauritius bY Dhurumbeer Kulpoo Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development Port Louis, Mauritius International Institute for Ministry of Education and Educational Planning, Human Resource Development, UNESCO Mauritius The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or IIEP concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities, or concerning its frontiers or boundaries. This document has been composed by IIEP Publications and printed in IIEP’s Printshop Published by the International Institute for Educational Planning 7-9 rue Eugene-Delacroix, 75116 Paris, France Cover design by Marie Moncet. Woodcut by Helene D&y. 0 UNESCO 1998 Foreword The Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) is a consortium of Ministries of Education located in the Southern Africa sub-region. For several years these Ministries have worked in close partnership with the IIEP in order to undertake educational policy research with the main aim of generating reliable information that can be used by decision-makers to plan the quality of education. In January 1997 the Government of Zimbabwe officially registered SACMEQ as an international non-governmental organization. SACMEQ’s Sub-regional Co-ordinating Centre is located within UNESCO’s Harare Office. The work of the Centre is managed by a Director and is guided by a Committee chaired by Zimbabwe’s Minister of Education. The ‘founding members’ of SACMEQ are the IIEP, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania (Mainland and Zanzibar), Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. SACMEQ’s programme of research and training has four features which have optimized its contributions to the field of educational planning in Africa: it provides research- based policy advice concerning issues that have been identified by key decision-makers, it functions as a co-operative venture based on a strong network of educational planners, it combines research and training components that are linked with institutional capacity building, and its future directions are defined by the participating Ministries. SACMEQ’s initial educational policy research project was assisted during 1994/1995 through a Funds-in-Trust (FIT) agreement between the Italian Government and UNESCO. In 1996 SACMEQ’s sub-regional activities were financed under an FIT agreement with the Netherlands Government. This arrangement was renewed in 1997 for the launch of SACMEQ’s Sub-regional Co-ordinating Centre. The costs associated with future SACMEQ projects will be financed from two sources. First, the SACMEQ Sub-regional Co-ordinating Centre will support co-operative sub-regional activities which include project design, sub-regional training workshops, construction of data archives, and dissemination of results. Second, the participating Ministries will cover their own within-country research costs related to printing, field work operations, data entry and cleaning, the provision of general overheads for project co- ordination, and the publication of national reports. This report presents the research results and policy suggestions that emerged from the implementation of SACMEQ’s initial educational policy research project. It is offered to other educational planners - not as a final evaluative comment, but rather as a stimulus for constructive discussion of educational policy options, and also as a successful model of productive collaboration among educational planners from many different countries. Hon. Mr Kadress R. Chedumbarum Pillay Dr JacquesHallak Minister of Education and Human Resource Development ADG UNESCO / Director, IIEP Port Louis, Mauritius Paris, France Further Information For further information about SACMEQ and its policy research programme, please contact: The Director SACMEQ UNESCO Regional Office 8 Kenilworth Road Harare Zimbabwe Telephone: (263-4) 776 114-5,776 775,746 23 1,786 598 Fax: (263-4) 776 055 E-mail: [email protected] For further information about the REP’s programme of co-operation with SACMEQ please contact: Dr Kenneth N. Ross International Institute for Educational Planning 7-9 rue Eugene-Delacroix 75 116 Paris France Telephone: (33-l) 45 03 77 19 Fax: (33-l) 40 72 83 66 E-mail: 100143.37compuserve.com Acknowledgements SACMEQ’s initial educational policy research project was a co-operative cross- national initiative focused on shared policy concerns that were related to planning the quality of primary education in the Southern Africa sub-region. Each national educational policy report prepared for this project therefore represents a ‘team effort’ that has been made possible through the hard work of many people. The International Institute for Educational Planning and the SACMEQ network of Ministries of Education would like to thank everyone involved in the successful implementation of this important project and, in particular, to acknowledge the contributions made to this report by the following people. Kenya Mary Kariuki Malawi Joseph Chimombo Mauritius Dhurumbeer Kulpoo Namibia Friedhelm Voigts Zambia Manasseh Nkamba Joe Kanyika Zimbabwe Thomas Machingaidze Patrick Pfukani Sibangani Shumba Tanzania (Zanzibar) Sebtuu Nassor Khadija Ali Mohammed IIEP Kenneth N. Ross T. Neville Postlethwaite Mioko Saito Jocelyne Vellien Contents Page Foreword Acknowledgements Chapter 1: The setting for the study Introduction School education in Mauritius Finance for education Recent plans for educational reform Resulting policy concerns A response to the policy concerns The five main policy-related questions for SACMEQ’s initial project Chapter 2: The conduct of the study Introduction 6 Co-operation with SACMEQ 6 Instrument development 7 Sampling 9 Calculation of sampling errors 12 Data collection 16 Data entry and cleaning 17 Conclusion 17 Chapter 3: What are the baseline data for selected educational inputs to primary schools in Mauritius? Introduction 19 A note on the interpretation of the data analyses 19 Specific policy questions related to educational inputs 20 What were the characteristics of Grade 6 pupils? 20 What were the characteristics of Grade 6 teachers? 27 What were the teaching conditions in primary schools? 30 What aspects of the teaching function designed to improve the quality of education were in place? 33 What was the general condition of school buildings? 42 What level of access did pupils have to books? 45 Conclusion 46 Chapter 4: How do the conditions of schooling in Mauritius compare with the Ministry’s own benchmark standards? Introduction 47 Basic organizational features of schooling 47 Classroom furniture and supplies 50 Academic and professional qualifications of teachers and school heads 53 Conclusion 56 xi Chapter 5: Have educational inputs to primary schools in Mauritius been allocated in an equitable fashion? Introduction 57 Two approaches to the measurement of equity 57 Equity calculations for material resource inputs 59 Equity calculations for human resource inputs 61 Conclusion 63 Chapter 6: What is the level of reading for Grade 6 pupils overall and in the three domains of reading literacy? Introduction 64 The structure of the reading test 64 The construction of six reading test scores 65 Analyses of mastery levels 66 Analysis of mastery levels for sub-groups 69 Analysis of narrative, expository, and document sub-scales 72 Conclusion 74 Chapter 7: Which educational inputs to primary schools in Mauritius have most impact on the reading literacy achievement of Grade 6 pupils? Introduction 75 Educational inputs and pupil achievement 75 Bivariate relationships 75 Construct formation 78 A causal model 79 Conclusion 82 Chapter 8: An Agenda for Action Introduction 84 Classification of policy suggestions 84 A four-stage Agenda for Action 93 Co-ordination of Ministry responses to the Agenda for Action 94 The future 94 References 95 Figure Figure 7.1: Path diagram for analysis of factors affecting reading literacy 81 xii Chapter 1 The setting for the study Introduction Mauritius consists of three main islands and some smaller islands in the Indian Ocean. The main islands are: mainland Mauritius, the island of Rodrigues, and the island of Agalega. The smaller islands are virtually uninhabited. Mauritius became independent in 1968 and a Republic in 1992. In 1993 the estimated population was just over one million inhabitants with a population density of 638 persons per square kilometre. By the mid-1990s the population growth rate had stabilized at 1.l percent per annum. Mauritius is a multiracial, multilingual, and pluricultural country. It is a country where the official language is English, the generally spoken one is French, the common finguafranca is Creole, and the language at home can be Bhojpuri, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, or Mandarin, among others. The teaching of these different languages and the level at which they should be introduced into the school curriculum have always been controversial issues. Children study English and French in primary school and some of them also study an Asian language. School education in Mauritius Education is compulsory from the ages of 5 to 12 years. The gross enrolment ratio for the primary school age group (5 to 11 years old) is estimated to be 107 percent. The net enrolment ratio for the same age group is estimated to be 98.5 percent. Education