It's all coming back to me now....

The long-awaited list was out yesterday afternoon making a few chosen very happy and leaving hundreds deceived. Every year, school leavers await their results with impatience and those who have been hopeful to win a scholarship await the list of scholarship winners with a mixture of eagerness and stress.

At 18, you think the world would stop if you deceive your parents. At 18, you think it's everything to live up to their expectations. At 18, you think your future rests in having great A levels results. I can't imagine the stress of the very smart, those whose dreams and aspirations all stem from being a scholarship winner and hearing their names on the radio. One "laureate", as we call them here, was interviewed yesterday and she admitted not being to eat or sleep because of the imminent announcement of the results. Have she not won one of the scholarships, the same student would have been devastated and disgusted with life.

Flashback: February 2000. Having a combination of subjects that didn't allow me to compete for the scholarships, there wasn't going to be my name in the papers, nor being announced on the radio. But I was just as eager to hear the names of the scholarship winners so that I could congratulate them if I knew them. It's funny the frenzy around that list. When the list came out for my year, all of my friends' names were in the newspapers, not because they were scholarship winners, but because they were good enough to be ranked. Yes, it is something else when you see your name on that newspaper, isn't it? My mom says it's pride. The parents can be proud of their kids when they put their names on those papers because of their academic prowess.

So what happens to those kids whose names weren't in the papers then? Does that mean that their parents can't be proud of them? Yes, my friends were all in the papers, but they were there not because they happen to be among the very smart, but because they chose a "side" where competition is not that good. I, on the other hand, had excellent results but, as my mom points out, would never have the recognition provided by the papers.

7 years down the road, it doesn't mean anything now. It didn't even mean anything when we all went to university. Nobody cares that you were or weren't ranked for your A levels, nobody cares that you were in the papers in tiny Mauritius. I'm sure it certainly made a difference for the scholarship winners, their parents didn't have to provide thousands (if not millions) of rupees for their studies, but that didn't make them more likely to succeed than others who didn't win.

It's outrageous the pressure parents put on their kids to win those scholarships. It's outrageous that success in Mauritius is mostly measured in academic results.
For those who weren't in the papers or for those who tried their best and still didn't make it to the top, I want to say: chin up, life doesn't resume to one exam. There will be loads of opportunities for you to succeed, it's up to you to take them and to find your way to the top.