Thousands of teenagers are getting ready to sit for the Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) exams in a few weeks' time. Just before Parliament was dissolved, Education Minister Louis Galea was asked (PQ 38,810) to publish information on the number of students who would be taking their SEC exams this year. The information given in Parliament shows that the majority of those attending Form V of state secondary schools - known as "area secondaries" - will not even sit for these exams.
I keep focusing on this sector as the Nationalist Party refuses to admit that there is a serious problem and that every year at least 2,000 16-year-olds complete their secondary education without acquiring the skills and competences needed to survive and thrive in the 21st century. The only benchmark that our education system uses at present to measure the performance of our students is the Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) exam run by the Matsec Board of the University.
Only students who get Grades 1 to 5 qualify to continue post-secondary education. Grades 6 and 7 have no currency with employers. According to official statistics given by Minister Galea in Parliament (PQ 34,383) out of 5,092 students who completed their secondary education last year, 1,101 (22%) did not even bother to sit for any May 2002 SEC exam. Another 1,338 students (26%) failed to get a pass mark in Maltese, English and Mathematics. Out of 5,092 students, 2,439 failed to pass their SEC exams in Maltese, English and Mathematics. These 2,439 young people exist, even if Dr Galea and the PN prefer not to see them.
Addressing a seminar on December 11 and talking about "The strengths and weaknesses in Malta's competitive position", the governor of the Central Bank, Michael Bonello, said: "The last dimension of government efficiency in relation to competitiveness considered here is the adequacy of the education sector. Malta scores a relatively low 61% of the EU average compared to 80% in other candidate countries. Although Malta has relatively high pupil-teacher and school enrolment ratios, it scores less well in terms of literacy and of the availability of engineering and business skills. There is also a gap in the knowledge transfer between educational institutions and industry, and this is hampering productive innovation."
Educating for success
Late last year the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the evaluation it carried out on the quality of the education system of 32 advanced countries. The study, called PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is based on tests carried out on 14- and 15-year-olds to measure their linguistic, mathematical, scientific and technological competence to solve problems in the real world. According to this study South Korea has the best education system, followed by Japan, Finland, Canada and Australia.
The best systems are those that combine quality and equality: where the largest possible number of students succeeds and there is a very small gap between those who succeed and those who fall behind. Our system fails on both counts.
Malta did not take part in the PISA study. A new Labour government would take the necessary steps to enable Malta to start taking part in these international research projects to be able to gauge where our teenagers stand in relation to others around the world who compete with us for investment. Education and wealth creation go hand in hand and investment moves to countries with a skilled workforce. The high rate of failure of our students threatens their personal future and jeopardises the economic prosperity and social cohesion of our country.
Over 2,000 teenagers, half our students, are failing when they complete their basic education every year. Problems get worse by being hidden. In the last four and a half years no action was taken to deal with the failure and inadequacy of our education system to equip as many young people as possible with the skills and competences needed today. A glance at May 2002 SEC exams results shows that boys are performing worse than girls in Government general secondary schools and Junior Lyceums. In Church schools there is no basic difference in the performance of boys and girls. Only in the independent schools did boys perform much better than girls. We need to understand this gender gap and address it without in any way diminishing the commitment to ensure that more girls succeed in their education.
This issue should concern all schools, as unqualified and poorly skilled boys and girls will grow into young men and women who become a problem for themselves and all others around them. Government area secondary schools and junior lyceums should put this issue as one of their main objectives in their school development plan. But even other schools cannot afford to ignore this problem. Unskilled and unqualified young men and women get caught in a vicious circle of drugs, crime, domestic violence, unemployment, social exclusion that is best dealt with through preventive social, educational and health policies.
Secondary schools need to change and become more relevant to the needs of teenagers. These schools should at least give them the basic literacy, numeracy, scientific and technological skills and democratic citizenship competences they cannot do without. A new Labour government is committed to introduce new vocational subjects (such as tourism studies, catering, basic engineering, construction, agriculture etc...) in these schools and to train teachers to use the pedagogical methods of learning by doing.
A new Labour government will raise standards in kindergarten and primary schools and consider our top priority literacy in Maltese and English, numeracy and spread a culture of science and technology among our children. We need to humanise our schools and create a school environment where children and youngsters enjoy coming to school. Both the winners and the losers of the present educational system need different secondary schools. Even those who are succeeding need to succeed differently. The present system is still based on an exam culture, which rewards memorisation of information about yesterday when we should be equipping our youngsters for the uncharted waters of tomorrow.
We will put the SEC exams on a more solid basis and give students the right to see a copy of their corrected paper when they ask for their mark to be revised. We will remove VAT from the education sector and stop the introduction of VAT on books and printed matter. We will set up a fund of Lm1.5 million to enable our young people to complete post-graduate studies at European and American universities.
The success of our country depends on the personal success of our young people in an education system that manages to give them the skills and competences they need.
evaristbartolo@hotmail.com