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The Royal College Curepipe (commonly known as RCC) is a state boys-only secondary school located in the centre of Curepipe, Mauritius. Since its inception, the RCC has produced many eminent figures, such as members of parliament, ministers, doctors, engineers, accountants, executives, judges, businessmen and other successful professionals as well as leaders in Mauritius. Of course, it has also produced its fair share of crooks, conmen,murderers and lawyers. The Royal College Curepipe has an air of ancient austerity (does he know what austerity mean and is this how RCC should be described? A prison rather than a school may be an austere building) in comparison with the new town buildings around it. This magnificent building situated in the middle of Curepipe somewhat retraces the history of its country.

History
The Royal College Curepipe is one of the oldest institutions of the Republic of Mauritius. The history of the Royal College Curepipe stretches back to 1791. In that particular year, the ancestor of the Royal College of Curepipe, the 'College National' also known as the 'College Colonial' was founded in Port Louis.( Actually to use the word ancestor  to describe the antecedent of RCC is the wrong word to use and reflects the poor  standard of English in the institution.  Ancestor  is used mostly to describe a person, such as a person from whom one is descended, or a person who serves as an influence or model eg a philosophical ancestor, and in legal parlance may mean a person from whom a heir derives his inheritance). The school was reserved for the children of the privileged classes of that area and the college bore the name of 'Ecole Centrale' in 1800, before taking that of 'Lycee Coloniale' from 1803 to 1810 during the final years of the French rule in Mauritius. The 'Lycee Coloniale' was a boarding school and military training was introduced. For six months after the British conquest in 1810, the 'Lycee Coloniale' was used as a military hospital. Finally in 1813, the name of the college was changed by a decree of Governor Sir Robert Farquhar, dated the 27th January of that year and the 'Lycee' became the Royal College, with the status of a public institution under the protection of the Sovereign of Great Britain. The name has remained till this day despite the accession of Mauritius to the status of Republic. 1871 was the year during which a branch of the Royal College was first established in Curepipe, the reason being to provide students with an alternative to the long and tiring trips from Curepipe to Port Louis. By 1883, the Curepipe branch had a very good reputation and the then Rector, Mr. A. Messervy, declared during a prize-giving ceremony; "It is not improbable that the Curepipe Establishment may ultimately become the headquarters of the Royal College." This mass immigration (doesn’t he know the difference between immigration and migration?) turned out to be of great significance in the history of the Royal College. Around that time arose the question of a permanent site for the Royal College. In 1907, a Royal College Site Committee with Mr. Georges Guibert at its head presented a report that indicated Quatre Bornes as the best location. However, the cost was estimated at around R360 000 and the project did not advance from there. In 1912, it was decided that the college would remain in Curepipe and on the 1st October 1912, the Governor Sir Robert Chancellor and the Director of Public Works, Mr. Paul Le Juge de Segrais laid down the foundation stone of the present building. Two years later, on the 12th January 1914, the construction came to an end. The college built of blue basalt, resembled the Buckingham Palace of London with its characteristic symmetrical rectangular form. This kind of thinking is highly fanciful and farcical. Using the same logic, any building built around a quadrangle can be said to look like Buckingham Palace. It is the type of colonial deference RCC students continue to exhibit and this superficial quality does not allow for the promotion of intellectual development so necessary for a nation coming out of the shadows of colonialism. At the beginning of this century, the college was preparing pupils for the Matriculation and University degree examinations in the United Kingdom, as well as for the Junior and Senior Cambridge local examinations. The college was teaching Classical Subjects, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Modern Languages. English, French, English History and French History were compulsory throughout the course of studies. The college was divided in two departments; the upper college with a classical and a modern side comprising four classes each, and a lower college comprising four classes. The studies were stretched over nine years. Latin was introduced in the third year and Greek and Science in the fifth year. Prospective thinking and retrospective analysis will reveal that this was again another vestige of British Colonial imperialism thrust upon Mauritius. Apart from the remote intellectual exercise, what useful purpose did the learning of Latin or Ancient Greek serve in the development of the Mauritian Intellectual. It might have been much more useful to study Modern Languages or even Asian Languages like Urdu, Hindi or Telegu. It is shameful for our own Citizens of Indian stock to be unable to communicate in writing or in conversation with millions of Indians in the asian subcontinent. There were twenty five hours of tuition per week. Fifteen scholarships were annually awarded through competition. Two scholarships were for studies in Great Britain and had been awarded every year since the Education Ordinance was passes in 1857. These scholarships were solely reserved for the Royal College. At the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, the college had two of the most prestigious pupils ever: Dr. Maurice Cure, one of the most brilliant Mauritians of all times and founder of the Mauritian Labour Party; and Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam who later succeeded Dr. Cure as leader of that party, and led the country to independence - and is considered as the Father of the Nation. Several other famous Mauritians like Sir Raman Osman and Sir Gaetan Duval studied at the Royal College. Until 1944, the Rector of the Royal College was one of the most powerful administrators in Mauritius. The department was, in fact, divided into two sections; one wholly dedicated to the administration of the Royal College and the other to the supervision of other educational institutions. At one time, the Rector was even the chairman of the first section of Institution and directly responsible, in 1934, to the Governor. However, in 1944, the powers of the Royal College of Curepipe within the administration of the department of Education was transferred to the Director of Education. In 2001, a complete renovation project of the school infrastructure had started. The project cost a total of 66 million Mauritian rupees and included the construction for a new gymnasium adding to the science laboratories, football pitch, basketball ground and tarmac grounds. The gym hosts facilities for fitness, badminton and table-tennis. Like everything in Mauritius, in 2009 it is still not completed (sounds like the construction of the Sacrada Familia Church in Barcelona) and for reasons which are obvious to the average citizen,it is expected that by the time these renovations are completed, you could have built 3 other new schools with the same amount of rupees.

Africa Almanac listed RCC as one of Africa's 50 oldest schools. However, in its list of Top Best 100 High Schools in Africa, RCC was nowhere to be found. At Number 71 was RCPL. http:/ / www. africaalmanac. com/top20highschools. html

Activities and Aims
Since time immemorial, the Royal College Curepipe has remained the most prestigious and most successful of colleges in Mauritius. Over the years, the success at examination results have steadily increased at all levels. Indeed many national scholarships have been obtained by pupils at the RCC. RCC students have developed a strong sense of solidarity among themselves, and have expressed real devotion, affection and concern for their school. Following the educational reform in 2006 when the Labour Party came into power, form 1 students were allowed to the college. An annual school magazine, which contains pictures, class photos, articles, funny facts and stories, is edited by the school's students. The editorial committee designs, find sponsors, collect articles, take photos, organise sales, co-ordinates activities and organise meetings. This task has often proved challenging, but the team have determination to produce a worthy magazine for the RCC, illustrating the creativeness and originality of the students. The school magazine for 2008 is still in production. (Hey, my friend, we are almost into 2010) The main goal of instructors at the RCC is not only to train the students for exams, but to also shape the future of each student who passes through the corridors of the school, to make each one respectable, honorable, exceptional and successful citizens, to ensure that they can stand on their own feet without being dependent (the English grammar in that sentence is appalling), and to also inculcate a sense of humanism and realism and to respect human values and norms, while developing their mental and physical abilities in one of the most prestigious secondary schools in Mauritius. RCC is also known as a laureate-maker. This actually is no great feat. Admission to the school is dependent on being one of the top boys at the primary school exit examinations (the CPE). If a school protected by Governement support and finances cannot make scholars from this cohort of students, it must really be the pits. It is actually said that RCC as a school does not do much for its students. The teaching quality is abysmal or extremely poor. A recent survey conducted by an independent think tank found out that 68.3% of RCC students were taking private tuition at great expense to the parents who expected better from a premier organisationand who largely belong to the lower social classes. It is an incredible shame that instead of providing the environment for these bright students to reach greater heights of excellence and performance, what RCC is doing is to sit back and allow mediocrity to crawl in. Several of our so called RCC laureates have been described as struggling in their mediocrity (merde) when they are placed in an environment like Harvard or Melbourne and are unable to focus or benefit truly from the benefits of a true education, scholarship and the finer points of knowledge and human endeavour. Many are choosing courses which are safe rather than more challenging ones which entail an amount of risk and entrepreneurship. This is the goldfish in a pond syndrome: we are the greatest but in reality there is a whole sea out there. Should we be surprised that Africa Almanac does not include RCC as one of the top 100 High Schools in Africa. I mean, Africa, not Europe or USA. And that survey was in 2003. Things have gone down the drain since. RCC better wake up.

External links • History of The Royal College Curepipe [1] • Royal College Curepipe [2], College Portal References [1] http:/ / www. alphavilla. info/ college. royale. curepipe. htm [2] http:/ / www. royalcollegecurepipe. com/