In July 2014, high school students in the UK launched an iPhone to the edge of space, tracked and recovered it and posted a video of its journey (see below). When Yousuf Alimohamed (studying at Kings College London) found out, he had this to say:
What was I doing as an A-level science student in Mauritius? What are you doing as an A-level science student in Mauritius? Our teachers tell us to stick to the syllabus and to memorise answers through rote learning. ‘This is education’, they would have us believe. They encourage us to sink hundreds of hours to turn our A into an A* through rote memorisation, because apparently an A* will make you while an A will ruin your future.
Well I have news for you. In the home country of the A-level itself, they do more than just stick to their own paper syllabi. Looking at this video, I’d have been happier and (I believe) better educated had I come out of the system with a B, but had had the chance to engage in such activity.
I went to a college regarded as good but in retrospect, I still find the education I received there lacking, and I do not doubt it is just as bad elsewhere in other state schools as well, national or not. I can recite the fucking physics book for you by heart, but I wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted to send an iPhone to space, or do anything even remotely practical and interesting. That, to me, is not proper education. And the British agree.
The ministry thumps its chest about providing us with a holistic education, yet the teachers and principals say it is not ministry policy to engage in practical education like so. Someone, somewhere is fucking up, and I think it’s the civil servants at the top. I don’t think all my teachers were, by a stroke of misfortune, all uninspired or lazy. No. They’re good men and women, at least most of them are. But they’re chained. Muzzled. They are not expected to do more than hammer written answers in our heads, and are not rewarded if they do go above and beyond the (very low) call of duty. In fact, they’re probably discouraged from doing more for their students.
When will it be time for a true educational reform? It should be a priority. If you fix education, if you nurture creative, critical and curious minds, then in the space of a generation you will have a citizenry that is just so: creative, critical and entrepreneurial. It will fix politics. If politicians no longer need to pander to the narrow-minded and brainless partisan-no-matter-what (because education ‘fixed’ them), then the politicians themselves will be better to appeal to the better citizenry.
Politics is brought up a notch, and everything else by rebound. The economy is brought up a notch with new entrepreneurs and adventurous people with ideas. Health is brought up a notch; holistic education with its sports, balanced diets and better awareness makes healthier citizens. Culture is brought up a notch, with creative people encouraged rather than being put down because they’re not great academically only. Law and order is brought up a notch; the citizenry having been educated to be more considerate towards society.
Give me one ministry. ONE. Not ten. Not fifteen. Not prime-ministership. No. ONE ministry and I’ll do more to help fix this country in twenty years than all the other ministers and ministries could do put together in a hundred years. Education is the ultimate domino effect, and if we continue fucking up in that respect, we’ll still feel the sting half a century from now.
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Original reporting by Sky News:
The science project took teenagers from Giles Academy in Boston, Lincolnshire, two years to plan and fundraise for. On the shopping list for their spacecraft was a large balloon, a GPS tracker, a flight computer able to track altitude and an iPhone which filmed the whole flight. Despite the planning and preparation, the flight did not quite go to plan at first.
Science teacher Andrew Castley said: “We had loads of pupils from school lined up to witness the big launch but the balloon hit a tree. By the time we got it down and relaunched it was home time so most of the children had left. It wasn’t until the morning that I showed them the incredible footage and they were blown away.”
Students managed to capture more than two-and-a-half hours of footage including the curvature of the earth and the deep black of space. The phone reached 18 miles (29km) above the surface of Earth before the thinning atmosphere caused the balloon to burst. The equipment then floated down safely with a parachute. Mr Castley and his team found it using a GPS tracker some 40 miles away in Norfolk.
The teacher said: “I always do these crazy projects, I did one running on custard once. This has been phenomenal though and next I want to do live streaming and go even higher.”
______________________
Here are the highlights of the flight:
Facebook discussion: facebook.com/WeLuvMu/posts/861853510519896
How did you end up in Kings College London? By studying A-levels in Mauritius? If no, then ignore my comment. If yes, then I suggest you stop complaining and be grateful you have managed to pursue higher education with the help of the free education offered to us. I agree it’s not perfect but I think we need to stop this blame culture and start to take our future in our own hands – all we do is complain about everything but sadly we don’t take any action. We choose to ignore the state of things and move to live in another country without even thinking that maybe we could help make a difference in our home country, if not for us then maybe for our children and future generations.
This is exactly what those British students are doing – they take matters into their own hands and don’t rely on spoon feeding, and blaming others for their own shortcomings.
Isn’t the article clear? He was accepted at King’s College because he got A*’s though memorising text books. Islamic fundamentalists can recite the Koran by heart but does that mean they can think for themselves? By writing the article, he is taking action by stimulating debate and making Mauritian students aware of education elsewhere. It is obvious that he is very passionate about making a difference back home, and perhaps resigned to the fact of his impotence. When spineless Ministers who have no domain knowledge are confronted with civil servants who are resistant to change and teacher’s unions who are obsessed with preserving tax-free incomes, it is surely no mystery why reform has been so slow. Were it not for the enormous demands on time and energy of private tuition, perhaps we would see more creativity from students. Kindly note that it was not the UK students that initiated the project, it was their teacher. And he didn’t demand a fee for doing it. It might be free to attend a school in Mauritius, but education costs – and it isn’t even good value.
One swallow the spring does not make. The state of education in UK is dismal.Generally secondary education is lamentable. World tables show a different story to what you are saying.Undergraduates are often asked to take foundation courses before attempting their first year at uni. There is just a few of these “brilliant” teachers in a population of 62 million. Also is the economy of MRU at the same scale as that of the UK? Are facilities the same? How many people do u know in Mtius who could buy an iPhone and risk losing it for an experience that is not going to show anything new?Have u done any research before writing your “scholarly” piece.Ask the Schools inspectorate of England and you’ll find out about education. Ask those who train the doctors of tomorrow in the UK- most of the future doctors do not know anatomy!
When one comes to a dvlped and large rich country from poor Mtius everything appears hunky dory but everything that shines is not gold.
Next you’ll ask why Mtius has not had any Nobel prize winners. Think- Your stupid, non motivated, syllabus centred teachers did not prevent you from doing that did they? They are the ones who guided you to where you are now!!!!!!!
It would be good if you could provide us a copy of the world tables that you are referring to. According to the Pearson Index, using composite scores with weightings developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the UK was ranked 6th in the world in 2014: http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/index/index-ranking
It would also be good for you to do some research on Mauritius before calling us “poor”. Our GDP per capita (Purchasing Power Parity) is over $17,000 and we are ranked in the top 70. Not bad don’t you think for an island that has no petroleum or mineral resources? Plenty of us have iPhones and Android equivalents and there is no mention in the news report that the iPhone used in the project was purchased specifically for it how old it was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
In fact a Mauritian (or at least half-Mauritian), J. M. G. Le Clézio, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._G._Le_Cl%C3%A9zio
It would seem fair to assume that your other references are equally unfounded don’t you think? And where in the article did the author say his teachers were stupid? Quite the opposite in fact. He is blaming top civil servants for the failings of the Mauritian system.
i think the author of this discussion is an intelligent young person who will do well despit the problems of his education system . Having brought my children up in the UK system were some schools were better than othersi still feel they had more opportunities than their cousins in Mauritius, schools in the UK are monitored and if lessons are not considered good enough they are given guidance in how to improve, if teachers do not teach properly this will be highlighted and improvments have to be made. I ask the questions who is monitoring in Mauritius? and what is monitored?
Stella, yes it would be interesting to hear about how the system is monitored in Mauritius- maybe someone who works in the education system can enlighten us?
John Cridland, CBI director-general, said: “The foundations for the development of higher-level skills and the essentials for working life, that employers require, are laid at school.
“With the right start at school our young people can go on to have successful and fulfilling careers and have a strong base from which to learn more at college, university, or in the workplace.
“But levels of educational attainment are rising fast in many leading and emerging economies, so in the UK we must ensure that our education and skills system can continue to compete at the cutting edge.”
The study – carried out jointly by the CBI and Pearson Education – found that 42 per cent of employers have organised remedial training for at least some of the youngsters joining them from school or college.
The most common extra training for school leavers is in IT, but around a fifth of all employers are putting on classes in numeracy or literacy, with some providing extra help in more than one area.
More than a third of employers said they were dissatisfied with school leavers’ literacy skills, while 30 per cent were unhappy with the levels of numeracy.
GCSE performance tables: Number of failing schools doubles in a year
Data published by the Department for Education shows that more than 300 schools missed the government’s basic targets for 16-year-olds, as grades at top performing schools also dip
Thursday 05 February 2015
GCSE performance tables: Number of failing schools doubles in a year
Data published by the Department for Education shows that more than 300 schools missed the government’s basic targets for 16-year-olds, as grades at top performing schools also dip
Le Clézio was born in Nice, his mother’s native city,Le Clézio has never lived in Mauritius for more than a few months at a time.He was raised in Roquebillière, a small village near Nice until 1948 when he, his mother, and his brother boarded a ship to join his father in Nigeria. His 1991 novel Onitsha is partly autobiographical. In a 2004 essay, he reminisced about his childhood in Nigeria and his relationship with his parents.
After studying at the University of Bristol in England from 1958 to 1959,[8] he finished his undergraduate degree at Nice’s Institut d’études littéraires.[9] In 1964 Le Clézio earned a master’s degree from the University of Provence with a thesis on Henri Michaux.[10]
Do we still think that he is even half Mauritian. Never even went to school in Mtius!
The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita figures on this page are derived from PPP calculations. Such calculations are prepared by various organizations, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. As estimates and assumptions have to be made, the results produced by different organizations for the same country are not hard facts and tend to differ, sometimes substantially, so they should be used with caution.
GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country’s standard of living,[1][2] although this can be problematic because —GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income–
GDP PER CAPITA IS NOT A MEASURE OF PERSONAL INCOME
Earnings are what counts when “rich” , “poor” terms are used. Mauritius is “RELATIVELY” a poor country compared to the UK
With regards to doctors not knowing amongst other things their basic anatomy it is from years of personal experience- i am a clinical years tutor for under and post graduates.
My point is that not everything in UK is fine. Mtian ministers should not be coming here for 2 weeks, listen to a superficial expose of reforms ( which have failed miserably here) and implement these without questions. Mtians need to evolve their own system which will best serve the country.
I welcome extracurricular activities and broad spectrum education BUT whether we like it or not exams and grades are here to stay.
John Cridland, CBI director-general, said: “The foundations for the development of higher-level skills and the essentials for working life, that employers require, are laid at school.
“With the right start at school our young people can go on to have successful and fulfilling careers and have a strong base from which to learn more at college, university, or in the workplace.
“But levels of educational attainment are rising fast in many leading and emerging economies, so in the UK we must ensure that our education and skills system can continue to compete at the cutting edge.”
The study – carried out jointly by the CBI and Pearson Education – found that 42 per cent of employers have organised remedial training for at least some of the youngsters joining them from school or college.
The most common extra training for school leavers is in IT, but around a fifth of all employers are putting on classes in numeracy or literacy, with some providing extra help in more than one area.
More than a third of employers said they were dissatisfied with school leavers’ literacy skills, while 30 per cent were unhappy with the levels of numeracy.
Post a Reply
kdrg
FEBRUARY 6, 2015
GCSE performance tables: Number of failing schools doubles in a year
Data published by the Department for Education shows that more than 300 schools missed the government’s basic targets for 16-year-olds, as grades at top performing schools also dip
Post a Reply
kdrg
FEBRUARY 6, 2015
Thursday 05 February 2015
GCSE performance tables: Number of failing schools doubles in a year
Data published by the Department for Education shows that more than 300 schools missed the government’s basic targets for 16-year-olds, as grades at top performing schools also dip
Post a Reply
kdrg
FEBRUARY 6, 2015
Le Clézio was born in Nice, his mother’s native city,Le Clézio has never lived in Mauritius for more than a few months at a time.He was raised in Roquebillière, a small village near Nice until 1948 when he, his mother, and his brother boarded a ship to join his father in Nigeria. His 1991 novel Onitsha is partly autobiographical. In a 2004 essay, he reminisced about his childhood in Nigeria and his relationship with his parents.
After studying at the University of Bristol in England from 1958 to 1959,[8] he finished his undergraduate degree at Nice’s Institut d’études littéraires.[9] In 1964 Le Clézio earned a master’s degree from the University of Provence with a thesis on Henri Michaux.[10]
Do we still think that he is even half Mauritian. Never even went to school in Mtius!
The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita figures on this page are derived from PPP calculations. Such calculations are prepared by various organizations, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. As estimates and assumptions have to be made, the results produced by different organizations for the same country are not hard facts and tend to differ, sometimes substantially, so they should be used with caution.
GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country’s standard of living,[1][2] although this can be problematic because —GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income–
GDP PER CAPITA IS NOT A MEASURE OF PERSONAL INCOME
Earnings are what counts when “rich” , “poor” terms are used. Mauritius is “RELATIVELY” a poor country compared to the UK
With regards to doctors not knowing amongst other things their basic anatomy it is from years of personal experience- i am a clinical years tutor for under and post graduates.
My point is that not everything in UK is fine. Mtian ministers should not be coming here for 2 weeks, listen to a superficial expose of reforms ( which have failed miserably here) and implement these without questions. Mtians need to evolve their own system which will best serve the country.
I welcome extracurricular activities and broad spectrum education BUT whether we like it or not exams and grades are here to stay.
Post a Reply
Think the point Kdrg’s trying to make is that compared to UK, Mauritius doesn’t have same amount to spend and same facilities as far as education is concerned..i agree with that.
When i was in school, ‘rich’ students would have 2-3 private tuitions per subject – i didn’t. They all had the newest book editions – i didn’t, i had to use the older versions my siblings used. I got good results thanks to my school teachers and my own hardwork. In UoM there wasn’t enough money in the budget to buy virtual reality software for us, that didn’t stop me and my fellow students from being bright creative career people after our studies. Mauritian students constantly achieve high grades internationally, and do really well when they move abroad – there must be a reason for that- i talk from experience.
We’ve all got different opinions depending on our individual experiences.
Numeracy test 16 to 24-year-olds
Netherlands
Finland
Japan
Flanders (Belgium)
South Korea
Austria
Estonia
Sweden
Czech Republic
Slovak Republic
Germany
Denmark
Norway
Australia
Poland
Canada
Cyprus
Northern Ireland
France
Ireland
England
Spain
Italy
United States
Source: OECD Survey of Adult Skills 2013
Young adults in England have scored among the lowest results in the industrialised world in international literacy and numeracy tests.
A major study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows how England’s 16 to 24-year-olds are falling behind their Asian and European counterparts.
England is 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy out of 24 countries.
The OECD’s Andreas Schleicher warned of a shrinking pool of skilled workers.
Unlike other developed countries, the study also showed that young people in England are no better at these tests than older people, in the 55 to 65 age range.
When this is weighted with other factors, such as the socio-economic background of people taking the test, it shows that England is the only country in the survey where results are going backwards – with the older cohort better than the younger.
‘Shocking’
The study shows that there are 8.5 million adults in England and Northern Ireland with the numeracy levels of a 10-year-old.
“This shocking report shows England has some of the least literate and numerate young adults in the developed world,” said Skills Minister Matthew Hancock.
I have not heard from drmu since my last postings.
Sorry I have been caught up with work. The conversation on the facebook page moved on. It was suggested that Mauritius would benefit from an approach similar to the International Baccalaureate. http://www.ibo.org/