Education: Proposed education reform by Rashid Jowaheer

In the education field for over 30 years, Rashid Jowaheer has come up with another model of the nine-year schooling reform. “I have had a close look at all the education reforms from the previous governments and from the current one as well. My major concern is the future of our children.

The current Ministry of Education is declaring that the Nine Year Schooling reform will eliminate competition. As an educator, I personally do not see that. The competition stress will just be shifted from the CPE (6 years) to the Form 3 for the National Exams (Year 9). In addition on what criteria will the ministry base itself to allocate schools to children passing their PSAC (6th year)? Will the students be using the same books/manuals next year? Will there be new books/manuals? Have teachers already been trained for the PSAC? There are thus many unclear points in the reform and we have not seen a proper plan of the reform,” he utters.

The educator, who has also worked in the Government services previously, trusts that Nine Year Schooling reform which will be implemented next year will not have much success. “I trust that we cannot go according to something which is fictitious. I believe that parents will not be satisfied with this new reform.” What is Rashid Jowaheer proposing? “Schools must be regionalised. As we have from Pre-primary and Primary nowadays and this should be continued in the same schools up to form VI named Polytechnical Regional Institutions. We have sufficient Primary, State and Private Schools. No need for spending money for building infrastructure. We only amalgamate most of the good schools and make it centred as a polytechnical school. We can teach from Pre-primary, Primary, secondary and even Pre-vocational level,” he explains.

According to Rashid Jowaheer, his proposal will solve the problem of competition, scholarship and finance. “Scholarship will be given to best students in different fields (Science, Business, Sports, Music, Technical, etc.). The Scholarship will be given part by the Ministry, part from countries abroad and part by sponsors from the Private sectors. I propose a minimum of 20 scholarships in different fields by the stakeholders for polytechnical schools.”

The educator has also come up with various recommendations for the reform, such as: regionalisation and abolition of Star schools, Seeking for other institutions, not only Cambridge-based Examination, training and formation should be given at a very early stage to teachers in different fields for specialization, class size must be reduced, maximum 26, private tuition should be abolished by remedial work at school – with a good incentive from teachers, psychologists and social workers should form part of the new curriculum, introduction of new subjects like Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Business, History, Geography, Sports, Music, etc. in all schools, sex education to be introduced in all institutions, social, moral and cultural values to be taught from the primary level.