Teacher fined Lm500 over school outing

The Malta Union of Teachers has instructed school heads not to organise any educational school outings after a junior college lecturer was fined Lm500 for providing his students with information about the Goddess of Fertility statue during an outing to Valletta.

The lecturer, who had around 10 students on the outing, was fined two months ago by the enforcement directorate of the Malta Tourism Authority, which said that only licensed tourist guides were permitted to lead "organised excursions".

Under the Malta Travel and Tourism Services Act, an organised excursion is defined as "any organised excursion or tour for five or more tourists or other persons to one or more places in or around Malta, but excludes any service intended solely to provide transport".

Describing the situation as "absurd", MUT president John Bencini said the union had instructed school heads not to organise any educational school outings for students until the issue was resolved and the Education Division took the necessary steps to protect teachers from such action.

The enforcement directorate board of the MTA told the MUT that despite the fact that this appeared to be a "genuine case of bona fide teacher, the law provides no leeway for any other form of guiding more than five people other than that provided by a licensed tourist guide".

The MTA director, enforcement, also pointed out that the Malta Travel and Tourism Services Act provided means of appeal to the Tourism Appeals Board.

However, the time limit from serving the notice to the registering of the appeal had "unfortunately" expired in this case, leaving the board with no option but to start court proceedings against the lecturer.

Mr Bencini said the lecturer's verbal request for reconsideration of the decision, which was not upheld, was supported by submissions from the permanent secretary of the education ministry and the MUT general secretary.

He said the lecturer would himself be taking the case to court and expressed shock at the fact that students could no longer benefit from "hands-on" education.

Qualified history teachers, standing on the bastions with their group of students, could not give them an explanation of their surroundings unless they were in possession of a tourist guide licence to do what was fundamentally their duty, he said.

If teachers were accompanied by more than five students to a monument, they would be fined for providing information about it.

Mr Bencini questioned whether there were enough guides to cater for the needs of schools anyway and, even if there were, could the schools afford to hire them?

Was a qualified, professional teacher, in possession of a warrant, constrained to teach between four walls?

The national minimum curriculum itself insisted on a hands-on approach and that students should be taken out of their classrooms.

Mr Bencini said that when asked whether the decision would affect cultural and educational visits by schoolchildren, the manager of the enforcement directorate had said that given the description of organised excursions in the law, teachers would be liable to prosecution.

He said an "eye-opening" circular was being distributed to school heads, so that they would be made aware of the situation and put a stop to school outings until amendments were made.

Education Minister Louis Galea said the education ministry has taken the issue up with the MTA "to find a modus operandi to have educational tours carried out by teachers".

It was normal for schools to take their students out to visit historical sites and "we cannot have teachers employing tourist guides to guide them on these tours," the minister said.