Expat families with school-age kids typically find moving to Mauritius as no problem at all when it comes to their children’s education. The curricula of schools in this island nation are amongst the top internationally recognised programmes, with either English or French as the medium of instruction.
Significantly, the country is taking strong measures to ensure continuity of teaching and learning after the school closures because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Legislative remedies have been pipelined to open and facilitate distance education mechanisms, including broadcast lessons, during the temporary closure of educational institutions. Notably, the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation already runs four different educational channels to broadcast lessons for Grade 1 to Grade 9 students.
Mauritius has a strong and adaptive educational system always ready to meet the call of the times. The country has implemented two landmark reforms in its educational system previously. The first came in 1977 when education became free at the secondary level. The second was the amendment of the country’s Education Act in 2005 making education compulsory up to age 16.
Mauritius, being a former colony of Great Britain, has an education system essentially based on the British template. There are four main sectors in the Mauritian education system: pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary.
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World-class colleges and universities
In recent years, Mauritius has been building up its Tertiary Education Sector to world-class status, as the country positions itself to become a knowledge hub in Africa. Foreign direct investments in the Tertiary Education Sector hence have been encouraged through government incentives.
Some of the prestigious academic institutions from overseas that responded were the University of Middlesex, Curtin University in Australia, and l’Université Paris-Dauphine. These institutions have consequently set up campuses in the country, sending plenty of international students to Mauritius.
Schools of international calibre
Many expat families in Mauritius have likewise benefited from the world-renowned Montessori pre-primary learning program adopted in several Mauritian schools. These institutions include Little Judy in the South, l’Ile aux Enfants on the West Coast, and Montessori Kids’ Paradise in the East.
Turning to the primary and secondary grades, Mauritius also offers several choices on international schools with teaching programmes either in English or French. Many students in the primary grades whose choice is English can attend the International Preparatory School in the North or the Clavis International Primary School in Moka. French-speaking students, on the other hand, can enrol at Ecole Paul & Virginie in Black River or Lycée Labourdonnais in Curepipe.
The options are plenty as well on private Mauritian secondary schools. Some of the leading picks for French-medium secondary schools is the Lycée Labourdonnais in Curepipe established in the 1950s. A logical option for English-speaking students is enrolling in the Northfields International High School located north where expat families also got plenty of choices in newly built residences.
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