Galea proposes new structure for state schools

Education Minister Louis Galea has suggested grouping primary and secondary schools together by region to form single entities, each run by a board and a college of heads acting under a principal.

Such a structure, he argued, would improve the way schools are managed and provide children with "continuity in their educational experience".

"Parents whose children attend state or Church schools say they wanted to have their minds at rest that their children would have a passage right through to the last grade. They are petrified of the bridge that exists (in the state school system) between primary and secondary levels. Some children cross it, others don't manage to keep up."

He stopped short of expressing explicit views on the Junior Lyceum entrance exams, failure in which relegates a child to a second-stream secondary school. However, the structure he is proposing, with children remaining in the same "institution" for the whole of their schooling, would imply a reform in this area too.

Under his proposal, he said, the board, the principal and college of heads would all have the educational and legal obligation to make something of the children starting from kindergarten.

"The principal would therefore be interested to look into their individual needs, which strategies would work for them, which are the geniuses, the average students, the backward ones, the support that they need.

"We could then provide them with different types of support, one of the roles already being carried out by the Foundation for Educational Services."

Dr Galea presented his thoughts on the basic direction that he feels the state educational system needs to take during a meeting for parents organised by the Association of School Councils.

He was careful to stress that he was only putting forward ideas, some of which he admitted were radical, for further discussion. "And there is a lot of discussion that needs to be done: with (education division) directors, the teacher's union, students, parents, cabinet colleagues, other organisations... this is just to allow you to start weighing up these ideas."

He invited open dialogue with the aim of reaching as broad a consensus as possible about what measures would most benefit the children, adding that reform - a process of evolution, not revolution - would take years.

He divided the reforms required in the state school sector into three areas. The first is to do with "content", or matters related to implementing the new curriculum, work on which has been underway for a year.

The second concerns improvements to the schools' physical environment, which has been taken in hand by the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools.

The third area, in which reforms have still to be undertaken, is the way primary and secondary schools are organised and run.

"We need to approach this area seriously, intelligently and courageously, and agree on decisions," he told the gathered parents.

He described the state school system as fragmented, with primary and secondary schools working in isolation of each other.

"If a school has good teachers and a good head, it works well. If the team is weak, then the children suffer."

Secondary schools were fed from primary schools, "but do they take any interest in the children when they are still in primary," he asked rhetorically.

His suggestion was to reorganise the schools into "clusters" based on geographical region, grouping a number of primary and secondary schools together under a single structure. Each group would also be given a name, "in the same way as San Anton or San Andrea are named."

Run by a board, a single principal and the heads of each school meeting as a college, the new set-up would give schools a more autonomous and efficient system of management.

Each school grouping would be given its own budget to administer, the power to employ teachers and other employees, and purchase its own materials - "the meaning of decentralisation".

The type of management created, said Dr Galea, would be akin to that found in private and Church schools which cover all the grades.

He complained about the inefficiencies of the current system: "When a state school needs to appoint a new caretaker, instead of just doing it, it has to go to the regional assistant director, who then tells the director, who tells the director general, who comes to me.

"And that's not the end. I then tell Castille, who tell the finance ministry, and then they play tennis with the matter for a while, after which it is refererred to the Public Service Commission.

"About two years later, in the time it would have taken for a couple of elephants to be born, a new caretaker may come into being.

"This is just one of the disadvantages that state schools have when compared to Church and private schools, and it's giving me a stomach ulcer. I want to do away with it."