Notwithstanding the famous comment that the Cambridge economist and Nobel Prize winner, James Meade had made on Mauritius, an internal World Bank memo mentioned the “intractable nature of Mauritius’ economic problems” and painted a “rather gloomy picture about the development prospects” of the country. After independence, those of us who had opted to stay, worked very hard to give our children a brighter future.
Those who understood the value of a formal education sent their children to school and those who had the means sent them abroad to pursue higher education. With the setting up of our first university in Réduit in 1965, more youngsters were able to get a tertiary education and we were able to produce a pool of highly-educated workers.