Editorial

Truancy and disruptive behaviour by students can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. Their causes range, according to the individual, from family background to the school's failure to sufficiently engage children's interest in learning. And they both lead to a failure to learn.

The Malta Union of Teachers the other day highlighted what it said was a rapid increase in the number of students behaving badly. It was scathing about what it claimed was the authorities' slumber on the matter. Some of the anecdotes it presented to press its case were shocking, such as the teacher who was threatened with disfigurement because she shouted at a student. The seriousness of the situation was brought home dramatically just three days later when a head teacher was attacked and injured by a 13-year-old student.

On the truancy front, a School Attendance Improvement report tabled in Parliament showed that students in government schools registered an average of 6.5 unauthorised absent days each during the 2003-4 scholastic year (compared with just 0.9 in the non-state sector).

It goes without saying that the need to stem both forms of unruly behaviour is urgent. The government has acknowledged as much by commissioning the attendance report, on the basis of which it is now expected to draw up new policies, and by issuing a code of discipline in 2002 and setting up a National Board for Behaviour in Schools to deal with reports of unacceptable behaviour. Furthermore, the Education Minister, Louis Galea, has just announced that a new institution will be formed next year to cater for expelled students.

So it is difficult to understand why MUT president John Bencini should accuse the authorities of being asleep on the question of bad behaviour - Dr Galea duly retorted that the comment was "completely unjust".

Still, it appears that the initiatives taken to tackle the phenomenon are falling short. If it is true, as Mr Bencini claimed, that "the teachers' schedule is too packed" for them to help their schools create codes of conduct and boards of discipline tailored to their school's needs, then it may be that the Education Division needs to intervene. On the other hand, if discipline is such a vital issue, perhaps schools need to rearrange their priorities.

In the wake of a number of incidents involving violence against teachers a couple of years ago, the minister had proclaimed a "zero tolerance" policy and the fines to punish such behaviour were raised. The approach seems to have worked to some extent: before the latest, admittedly serious incident, there had been no such serious misbehaviour for some time. Perhaps it is time to extend the policy to lesser forms of bad conduct.

Expulsion is currently the last resort, after other disciplinary measures have been tried and failed. With the new institution in the offing, there is a strong case for expelling students before their behaviour gets totally out of hand. This would be amply justified on the grounds of removing from the classroom boys and girls that prevent others from learning. It would also serve as a deterrent.

Allied to this measure, parents of expelled students should be served with an order, if necessary issued by a court, to attend parenting skills courses. On the other side of the fence, teachers should be given specific training in preventing and dealing effectively with disruptive behaviour.

Sweeping as the current education reforms are, they will not be complete without a stronger effort to stem absenteeism and unacceptable behaviour among students.