MUT on verge of industrial action

The Malta Union of Teachers will be meeting next week to decide what action to take after the government failed to send a positive reply to its proposals on the new collective agreement and the fate of 231 kindergarten assistants.

When pushed to define what action the union would be taking, MUT president John Bencini told The Times that the directives had still to be discussed.

"However, the directives we are envisaging will hit all the sectors. They will be issued before the end of the scholastic year, before the teachers break up for the holidays," he said.

The MUT yesterday rallied the support of its members on the issue, presenting an emergency motion during the second day of its three-day biennial general conference being held at Mount St Joseph in Targa Gap, Mosta.

The motion, read out by MUT general secretary Joe De Giovanni in the presence of Education Parliamentary Secretary Jesmond Mugliett, delved into the call for applications for facilitators and the collective agreement for civil servants covering 2002-2004. It was approved unanimously.

The motion observed that the authorities were insisting that the Faculty of Education's Certificate in Education, Learning Support Facilitators, was not equivalent to the Diploma in Facilitating Inclusive Education, despite an agreement the union had reached in August 1999.

The kindergarten assistants had been deceived, the motion said, because there had been no call for applications and they were told that the course they followed was not of a sufficient standard for them to qualify as facilitators.

"The authorities' offer to employ facilitators in different scales creates an unacceptable precedent that discriminates between officials of the same grade," the motion said.

On the issue of the collective agreement, the motion noted that the government was dragging its feet, especially when it came to a sectoral agreement on teachers' grades.

It was also noted that none of the union's proposals, presented to the government two years ago, had been included in the draft agreement for civil servants.

"We never agreed to give carte blanche to the authorities," Mr De Giovanni said to loud applause.

Several other motions were passed at yesterday's session, including one on inclusive education in which the union's council expressed its serious concern at the way this concept was being applied in schools.

The motion said that "while mild to moderate" cases were reaping positive results, serious cases could not benefit from inclusion. It called on the authorities to ensure that in such cases the necessary structures and support were in place, before authorising inclusion.

Another motion, which generated some debate, was on the verbal and physical abuse that teachers say they have to endure in schools.

This motion, which received unanimous backing, called for bigger penalties because the situation in certain schools had reached "unacceptable" levels and those teachers who spoke out were not supported.

Other motions passed included a call for guaranteed insurance for teachers, especially in the light of recent attacks, as well as the introduction of adequate time to compile their students' portfolios.

Mr Mugliett, who spoke towards the end of the session, said two critical aspects of the education system were democracy and participation.

"The National Minimum Curriculum clearly highlights the participation of all those involved and also delves into the distribution of power," he said.

"However, we cannot achieve democracy and participation unless the teachers and heads of school are happy with their conditions of work."

Mr Mugliett also expressed the hope that the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools would make a strong contribution towards developing a better environment for students' educational development.

"Our main aim is to have autonomous schools that can implement their educational programme without obstacles. We want to see the Education Division developing its role as a regulator of the island's schools instead of being a central administrator for the education system."