Avinash Meetoo

Let us build a Smart Mauritius together

Education is confusing

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Today, Christina and I had an interesting conversation with a young man who has just finished studying Computer Science for the past three years.

We were a bit surprised when he mentioned that, even though he is now a degree holder and is looking for a job, he does not want to work in IT. In fact, he told us that he does not like Computer Science a lot.

Naturally we asked him why he chose to study Computer Science given that he had other areas of interest and his answer was revealing: “No one helped me choose and I chose badly!”

A lack of guidance

The professional world is becoming more and more complex. New jobs and career possibilities are being created on a daily basis. Unfortunately, young people are not being advised properly:

  • Some parents decide for their children without asking them what they are passionate about. I feel that some of the lawyers, doctors, accountants, and, now, finance people and computer scientists are not very happy in their profession. Of course, they might be getting a nice enough salary but nothing beats doing something which you like.
  • The career guidance service, which exists in principle in secondary schools, is outdated. As I wrote above, new jobs and career possibilities are being created on a daily basis. It is difficult to keep abreast of those changes. I can imagine that some of the career guidance officers (who have mostly never worked in the private sector) are quite at a loss when having to explain to young people the career prospects in, for example, statistical analysis, digital marketing, game design or artificial intelligence.

Education can be confusing

Education comes from a Latin word which means “going outside” metaphorically, in the sense that education should be about discovering new and interesting things every day.

Unfortunately, in Mauritius, education mostly means staying inside and getting a degree. My point is that a lot of young people go through years and years of schooling without ever uncovering what they really like and/or what they are very good at. Of course, this becomes problematic when they have to choose subjects at Form IV, Form VI and at university.

Mauritius is a small country and we cannot afford to have unhappy and unproductive lawyers, doctors, accountants, finance people and computer scientists instead of happy and productive statistical analysts, digital marketers, game designers and AI specialists (for example).

This needs to change. What do you think?

The Importance of Managing Money

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ra·tion·al : based on or in accordance with reason or logic

It is public knowledge that quite a lot of Mauritian families are in debt, 75% of them it would seem (but I can’t find an official online source for that percentage).

According to me, this is partly because people are not taught the basics of finance when they are kids and, when they become adults, they sometimes become irrational in their behaviour and in their relationship with money. For instance, a lot of us buy things that we don’t need. There is fad at this moment in Mauritius to get an iPhone 6, a Samsung Galaxy S6 or a LG G4 at Rs 30,000 no matter whether we need such a powerful device (and can use it properly) or not. And, as you have surely noticed, Ébène is the cathedral of expensive clothes, shoes, cars and other gimmicks that don’t contribute one iota to our happiness levels but which cost a lot of money.

Fortunately, today, I overheard some people talking:

  1. One was explaining the mechanism of loans to his friends. He was telling them how compound interests worked. How it was rational to settle a loan early (if possible of course) so as not to pay a lot of interest. And, interestingly, he also mentioned that he had asked his bank to reduce his credit card limit in order for him to spend less every month.
  2. Crossing the road, I heard another guy having a phone conversation with a friend or a family member. He was explaining how irrational it was to buy something by contracting a debt. He was explaining that if he only had Rs 2500 and he had to buy something (hopefully useful) at Rs 5000, he would wait another month to have the Rs 5000 instead of buying through higher purchase (because of the very high interest rates).

I was amazed. My first impression that people lacked financial judgement was clearly wrong. Apparently, some of us are very rational as far as money is concerned. And these people are willing to share their knowledge with others.

This is a very good thing for the future of the Mauritian society.

What do you think?

A Smarter Mauritius

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The talk of the town in Mauritius at this moment (apart from the various scandals) is the concept of the Smart City, which is nicely explained by this infographics available on the Board of Investment website. A Smart City and, by extension, a Smart Mauritius, has to have:

  • A Smart Environment where people can practice Smart Living (in other words, respect nature and live with less stress)
  • Smart Mobility (use the car only when needed and maximise public transportation and bicycles like in most occidental cities)
  • Smart Citizens who have been educated through Smart Education
  • A Smart Government (which is not only preoccupied with the next elections but rather the development and advancement of the country as a whole)
  • Smart Businesses (which can develop new products and enter new markets by innovating)
  • Smart Infrastructure (which can sustain and satisfy future demands)
  • and Smart Utility (so that the country does not suffer from brownouts or droughts in the future)

Naturally, it is not smart to believe that we can transform our country into a Smart Country just by bringing in some consultants and praying that building some morcellements and roads will suffice. The key to making Mauritius a Smart Mauritius is the population of the country.

Our education system needs to be drastically changed so that anyone who finishes schools (at any level: primary, secondary or tertiary) is a Smart Person:

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A Smart Person as shown above (courtesy of an infographics by the Huffington Post) is:

  • Intelligent
  • Brilliant
  • Knowledgeable
  • Intellectual
  • Competent
  • Innovative
  • Confident
  • Professional
  • and a bit Arrogant too (or is that Self-Belief?)

Personally, I am sure that our education system can be revamped to produce such Smart People provided we better use (in the good sense of the phrase) Smart Lecturers, Smart Teachers and Smart Educators, foreigners or not. In my opinion, there are a number of excellent educators in the country but we need to supplement them with excellent educators from abroad (like Singapore did in fact a decade ago).

Students need to be Smart Students too. They need to focus more on Knowledge, Skills and the Joy of Learning instead of going to tuition, passing exams and obtaining a certificate.

Focusing on STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is also mandatory. The Smart World is a technological world and a country like Mauritius cannot afford not to have Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths professionals of sufficient caliber.

[Thanks to Sachin to bring art and culture to my attention: Developing the artistic talents and culture of the population, especially young people, is mandatory too. Like all humanists, I really think that everyone has the capacity to do wonderful things provided (1) she discovers and develops her talent and (2) she is given the possibility / opportunity to contribute, disrupt and bring much-needed changes.]

Is that too much to ask? What do you think?