Analysis of Primary Education in Mauritius – the economics of education in Mauritius

With reference to the statistics on Education provided by CSO, as at March 2010 there were 305 primary schools servicing 117,427 pupils. About 73 per cent of the pupils attended government schools while the rest were enrolled in private aided or non aided schools.  Among these schools 222 schools were government schools, 51 RCEA, 2 Hindu Education Authority and the rest were non aided. 8046 teachers were employed to teach these children. In a general manner, the performance of girls at CPE level is better than that of boys (75% against 62%).

According to the CSO, the government budget allocated Rs 10,467 million (12%) to education for 2010. Out of these 27 % went to the primary sector while 46% to the Secondary. These two subsectors took the lion’s share of the education budget.

Cost per student primary level

It is about Rs 2.7 billion which are spent per year in primary education. This figure divided by the number of students enrolled of 117,427 results in Rs 23,175 being spent per child per year on average out of Government funds. In fact, this figure is an underestimate as the children of non aided schools are included in the total number of pupils. In total, each child attending primary schooling would have cost to the State at the very least Rs 139,000 (6*Rs23,175).