This study focuses on the emergence of the High Schools, initiating a new type of education for middle class girls. It traces their development to 1914. The study is based largely on the extant archives of the schools themselves and the two major organisations that nurtured them - the Girls Public Day School Trust and the Church Schools Company - and on diverse published primary sources and printed ephemera. By mid-century many had become convinced of the need for an intellectual education for middle class girls. However the establishment of the High Schools involved an adaptation of contemporary middle and upper class conventions and threatened established gender and class concepts, with the result that many middle class families strongly opposed the schools. The High Schools aimed to provide a curriculum that as far as possible matched that provided for middle class boys. The liberal curriculum and team games for girls produced outrage, challenging as they did, male superiority and accepted ideas of the place of middle class women. The schools recognised however that there were boundaries that the male elite would not allow to be crossed and the thesis considers the balance as well as the breaches involved. The high schools created an educated, easily identifiable, group of women with a definite place on the national stage. While the majority returned home to become educated wives and mothers, the schools developed also a group of women teachers, with trained professional status, whose ideas were to shape the grammar schools of the twentieth century. Finally, the stress on academic excellence ensured a flow of women to the university colleges, and thence to the professions where the battle for parity of opportunity would be continued.

This research attempts to identify the factors which influence the choice of science subjects in Mauritius among girls at the end of the third year of secondary education, the level up to which science is a compulsory subject. This low uptake of science subjects by girls beyond the compulsory level is a matter of concern. The study was undertaken in four purposely selected schools in Mauritius, two mixed-sex and two girls’ schools. Using mainly a qualitative approach, data were collected through: (i) non-participant observations of 60 science and 20 non-science lessons, (ii) 16 semi-structured face-to-face interviews of teachers, and six group interviews with pupils and (iii) 135 questionnaires administered to the parents of the pupils in the classes observed in the four schools. Based on the results of a pilot study, modifications were made for the main study. The data provided insights into teachers’ teaching approaches, the behaviour and interest of pupils in the lessons and other factors such as pupils’ perceptions of science, their self-identity and role models, and the extent to which parents and peers influence the choice of subjects among girls. The findings show that teaching approaches were mainly traditional and that both girls and boys prefer hands-on activities and contextual examples reflecting real-life situations. The majority of the girls’ experiences of science were negative and this deterred them from taking science beyond the compulsory level although they were aware of its importance. Teachers had positive opinions about girls’ ability to do science but stated that lack of infrastructure facilities did not allow them to involve the pupils in practical work as much as they would wish. However, brighter girls’ decisions to study sciences were not outweighed by these factors. Parents felt that they did not influence their daughters in the choice of subjects or eventual careers though they held science in high esteem.

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies