[L.E] Effects of this daunting pandemic on A-level students

As we move towards a so called recovery from this disaster, we leave behind us scars that at times become difficult to heal .Throughout this pandemic we have seen the world coming together to fight this enemy yet it saddens us to see how supremacies have used those circumstances to grow more powerful on the economic ladder.
As a Mauritian student I strongly believe that the effects this crisis have had on the moral grounds of children are of utmost importance. Throughout decades we’ve heard words like wars, traumas, depression, calamities etc… yet not knowing their actual meaning. And then one day, the world comes to a halt, confinement is the new word, masks become the new trend, and death becomes the most dreaded fear.
We are then told to speak the new global language-that of covid-19.
Coming back to the educational facet of the debate, we cannot overlook the fact that this pandemic has really affected the psychological aspect of many students, irrespective of their social backgrounds.
To sit down in front of a screen all day long, trying to understand an algorithm concept not knowing what will happen to your life in the near future with exams being postponed is not an easy frog to eat.
With schools closed for over 3 months and seeing no light at the end of the tunnel with regards to the completion of the syllabus, the last resort of the minister was to simply postpone the exams. Fair enough! But what about the academic year, madam? What about those who are going to have to lose one year of their university lives simply because a cabinet decision had to be urgently taken?
Recently we’ve seen A-level students in the United Kingdom marching down the streets, expressing their anger regarding their results being downgraded and them not being able to acquire a seat in their dream universities. For sure, even the greatest mathematicians in the world can’t write an algorithm that can perfectly predict exams that no one sat. No computer can know who would have spent their final weeks cramming. No equation can say which student would have panicked.
We just hope that no such thing happens here in Mauritius. However, we as students would request that the MES allow those who are able and willing to sit for the November Cambridge exams to simply do so since delaying tactics are being used regarding this subject.
After all, one day, the pandemic will be over, and face masks and sanitisers and A level exams will all be a memory. But the Covid Class of 2020 will still have their A-level and GCSE exam grades on their life’s records.

 L. Hessa

NOTE : Les points de vue exprimés dans cette rubrique ne reflètent pas nécessairement ceux de la rédaction.