PLENARY SESSION - TEJANAND DEWOO, LE BOCAGE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, MOUNT ORY, MAURITIUS. "STUDENT CENTRED AND PROBLEM –BASED LEARNING, SHOULD BE THE MOTIVE THAT DRIVES NEW CURRICULUM IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS”

This speaker focused on a local school which was founded 20 years ago and has 600 students. 

There was originally high rates of absenteeism, increasing delinquency and lack of motivation from teachers and students.  Also students applying to University lacked qualifications and critical thinking skills. Reasoning given included lack of parental support, dysfunctional classes no innovation.

The school started to look at the purpose of the curriculum which included transfer knowledge, opportunities to apply this knowledge, provide interest, enables students to explore. The current approaches to teaching were not working and so workshops with students and parents were undertaken and undertook research to see what others were doing. Also brought in mentors from private business to discuss where o go. They needed to develop students as life long learners.

They chose to implement problem based learning and changed all the assessments to be measured against criteria. They also asked students to provide grades for teachers so feedback was two way. The teachers were encouraged to be innovative and take ownership of their curriculum. This has worked well and now there is team teaching, enthusiasm and engagement. PBL has enabled the school to become a learning organisation.