NAFCO was founded in 2019 as the national union of high school students in Mauritius. Since then, our core mission has been to represent, advocate for, and protect the shared interests, welfare, and rights of students across the Republic of Mauritius. 

For more than 20 years, the infamous ‘rat race’ of our education system has been criticized by students, educators, parents, academics and politicians (especially when in opposition). It is a known fact that our current education system is outdated and puts an alarming level of stress on our students. Since 2019, NAFCO has addressed multiple letters to Ministers to request educational reforms that finally put students first. As we’ve all seen over the past few years, NAFCO’s requests keep falling on deaf ears. This is why we have started this petition.

Mental Health
Mental health has constantly been stigmatised in Mauritius and our generation will not remain silent. Not because we’re feeble or fragile, but because we must tackle root causes of societal problems. A society with destigmatised mental health issues, where everyone can openly seek help, means a safer society, with less violence. This has been well documented by academics. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, NAFCO has demanded better mental health support in schools and educational reforms that actually relieve stress for students. We do not have data on the number of suicide attempts committed by secondary school students in Mauritius. It appears that no one has this information, we have asked. A single suicide attempt is too much, and we know that there are more cases than publicly disclosed. For these mental health reasons, we need the Education Minister to act. Providing additional counselling in schools is a cosmetic measure. It does not address the root cause: our extremely competitive, out-of-date system. 

Holistic Education
Our current education system is great for training AIs, not critical thinkers and creative minds. Our system encourages students to memorise textbooks and regurgitate everything in exam halls. This does not help students to develop a critical mind and question what’s around them. Instead, this system creates identical robots that know their textbooks by heart, but nothing else. One shall therefore not be surprised, if in 20 years, nothing changes in Mauritius. Without an education that tells students about their past, our shared history, or about politics, how can we expect our decision-makers to ever do better? We see a lot of youth-bashing online: “young people are lazy”, “they won’t do anything anymore”, “they only complain all the time”. But the real question should be: “how are we equipping young people to do better?” The answer is poorly. Very poorly.

Empathetic Human Beings
With the rise of social media, and its hateful (often racist and misogynistic) content, accompanied with increased academic competition fuelling careerism and individualism, it appears we forgot to teach students the most important ingredient to make society: empathy. To survive as a collective, we need people to care for one another and for those we don’t know. Our extremely competitive system turns students against each other, instead of helping us address the most important societal question: how can we better live together? We need an education system centred around care and collective good if we want a society that cares about the People instead of profits. Only then will we achieve a society with less violence and more compassion. 

For these reasons, we demand that the government: 

1. Meaningfully includes students in decision-making processes for the education system.
2. Reforms the State of Mauritius Scholarships in favour of a need-based system that also takes into account interdisciplinary skills, critical thinking and civic engagement.
3. Implement mandatory hours of extracurricular activities for all students from Grade 7.
4. Increase regulations on private tuitions with a ban from Grade 1 to 9, a maximum of 5 hours per week for older students, and a digital national register to monitor enrolments.
5. Seriously consider co-education in all public schools across Mauritius, from Grade 7 to 13, with appropriate civic education, sexual education and mental health support.

In April 2025, the Prime Minister said that this country’s only resource is its human capital. We expect investments and reforms to follow. 

Some of these reforms might seem impossible. It might seem inconceivable to ever move away from our beloved “laureate system”, simply because it has always been like this, it’s supposedly part of our culture. However, we don’t need taxpayers to sponsor students whose parents make Rs 10 million a year. These same students start ahead of most students and have access to the best private tuition. We need need-based scholarships. With political will, and by putting the average student first, all our measures are easily achievable.

Since the start of the year 2026, we have had 1,400 students join NAFCO, the Union that will advocate for them. This is a clear message to all decision-makers: the youth is ready, and we will mobilise.