Opposition calls for direction in education

Carmelo Abela, the opposition's spokesman on education, said yesterday that education in Malta was lacking strategic direction.

Mr Abela said in the budget debate that plans announced in the budget for the setting up of more science and technology labs were welcome, but the education sector was badly in need of direction.

How could Malta say it wanted to be at the leading age of information technology when funding for IT in education was being cut by a third for next year, on the back of another funding cut this year? Furthermore some 70 per cent of applicants to the Mcast IT courses had been refused because of a lack of resources while in primary schools many computers were now over 10 years old and there was no word on their replacement.

Mr Abela said the opposition welcomed the school-building programme. In 1996 the PN government allocated just Lm1.5 million as capital expenditure for schools while Labour allocated five times as much in 1998. Now that upward trend was continuing. However, the government had already fallen significantly behind in its long-term - and so far unpublished - programme to spend Lm60 million over eight years on school building and only some Lm18 million had been spent so far. There was confusion in figures given by the government and the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools. Furthermore, once these Lm60 million were being borrowed from APS Bank, how would they be repaid?

Mr Abela said the budget did not say anything about the implementation of the Spiteri report on education for persons with disabilities.

The basis of the Spiteri report was the supply and demand of facilitators. This was not being dealt with. Facilitators could evolve more as teacher assistants for students with special needs.

The Labour MP said that although works had started on new schools at Pembroke, Verdala (Cospicua) and Liceo Vassalli in Qormi the new Sta Lucija Junior Lyceum still did not have a hall. What was to become of St Joseph Junior Lyceum of Paola?

More importantly, what had become of the updating of the national curriculum? How would this budget be used for a more holistic education sector? Had the removal of streaming been monitored and evaluated? What work was being done to reduce the north/south divide in education levels? What steps had been taken to reduce truancy? Had the structures working on illiteracy been evaluated? Where was the language policy?

Mr Abela said it was good that more students were continuing to study beyond secondary school. The Junior Lyceum reform of 1981 and the setting up of Mcast a few years ago had no doubt contributed to this purpose.

However, there were problems in secondary schools. In 2005, out of 1,684 fifth formers in area secondary schools, just 72 passed the English exam, 63 passed Maltese and 80 passed Maths.

From the Junior Lyceum, out of 1,653 fifth formers, 1,065 passed the English exam, 994 passed in Maltese and 1,053 earned a pass in Maths. These results, clearly needed to be improved if students were to continue to study beyond secondary level.

Malta still had far too many early school leavers and too few students at post-secondary level in terms of the Lisbon Agenda rankings.

In his speech Mr Abela also spoke on the Labour Party's plan on education, saying this was a priority sector because it was central for the development of society. It was certainly not true that opposition leader Alfred Sant had projected a cut back in the education budget, as the education minister had claimed. He insisted that Labour gave equal importance to academic and vocational training and Mcast would therefore be expanded so that, as happened at the university, all students who wished to study would be able to do so.

Mr Abela said one should also review the budget for education. Out of Lm114 million more than 41 per cent went for personal emoluments. The capital vote was of nearly 15 per cent. This showed the need that funds were better spent.

On services to students, Mr Abela said that there were students who had been waiting to be seen by school psychologists for more than two years. Clearly there was need for reform in services for children in difficulty.

Did the minister know that the department for teacher training had been nearly dismantled? How would it function in the new educational structure? Mr Abela called for regular analysis of the new colleges system with comparisons between the colleges in Malta and similar institutions abroad.

Justyne Caruana (MLP), opposition spokesman on sport and youth affairs said unemployment was continuing to worry young people and leading many to abuse of alcohol, drugs and psychological problems. Many others were opting to leave Malta. The situation in Gozo was even worse than in Malta, where even University students could not find employment other than in occupations for which they were over-qualified.

Furthermore too many young people were being unjustifiably struck off the employment register.

The recently-published MLP document on youths was clearly putting youths at the centre of the party's considerations and sending out the message that their problems would be seriously tackled by a Labour government. There would be a Youth Coordinator in each ministry and a National Centre for Youths with centralised facilities to encourage regular meetings between youths and their leaders.

Dr Caruana said that one of the major problems affecting most Maltese, but predominantly youths, was the unwillingness to engage in sports and the government was hardly doing anything about it.

It was disconcerting that the budget was halving the vote for the construction and upkeep of sports facilities. The Maltese national rugby team was in a position to avail itself of a grant of Lm50,000 from the world rugby federation, but could not do so because it did not have a pitch it could call its own.

Dr Caruana said the Maltese Sports Council was clearly not living up to the role, even though it was getting Lm500,000 every year.

Karl Chircop said the government was painting a rosy picture of the employment sector, yet reality could not be more different. Unemployment had remained acute and the only jobs that were being created were part-time.

The Labour Force Survey showed that the number of gainfully occupied increased by 1,232 in the year to June. This also said that the number of economically inactive persons increased by 2,302. This showed that there was a net result in the negative. Was the number of inactive persons so high because so many people were in the black economy? Or was the ETC machinery so partisan that it was showing the opposite? The LFS also showed that unemployment only dropped marginally by 115.

What had become of the National Employment Plan?

Nationalist MP David Agius yesterday called for a national congress to discuss the state of sports in Malta.

He said in Parliament during the budget debate that Malta should also have a national sports day, involving all local councils, as a means to encourage more people to become active in sports.

Mr Agius said Malta had made significant investment in sports facilities and the National Sports Council should market them better, even among tourists.

Speaking on youths, Mr Agius suggested that the Forum Malta fl-Ewropa should include a youth section which would advise and guide young people on EU programmes and funding for youth organisations.

Clyde Puli (PN) said job creation was at the heart of this budget. Globalisation was an opportunity which needed to be grasped if Malta was to succeed. Economic restructuring had to be addressed to high value-added activities such as IT. Indeed success was also being achieved with foreign investment in the first nine months of this year reaching record levels and 4,300 new jobs having been created.

The budget measures, including the revision of the tax bands, were aimed at encouraging the people to work more. But, Mr Puli said, he still felt that the difference between social benefits and the minimum wage was too narrow and could encourage abuse of the former.

Mr Puli underlined the budget allocations under education, including Lm11.3 million allocated for the university, spending on new colleges, new labs in many schools, stipends for those following private post-secondary courses and post-graduate scholarships. All this reinforced the way the government viewed education as key for further economic growth.

Jason Azzopardi (PN) said funding for the Ministry of Education was being raised by Lm12 million for next year. The ministry, he said, had consistently shown itself to have a vision and a surplus of ideas and results.

Comparisons with the performance of the former Labour government were stark, notably in the number of students who were continuing to study after secondary school.

Dr Azzopardi said the recommendations in the Spiteri report were already being implemented and a process had been started for special schools to be transformed into resource centres. An induction course was to be given to 600 untrained facilitators. Discussions had been embarked upon with MCAST for an inclusion policy.

Following the publication of the Chalmers report, in 2006 the government allocated Lm200,000 under the Malta scholarships scheme to encourage Masters and PhD studies. The MLP was saying it would allocate a Lm1 million fund for similar scholarships. Did that mean that only some Lm60,000 of interest from this fund would be used for the scholarships?

Dr Azzopardi observed that the population at Mcast had now reached 4,000, but the government was working to double it within 10 years.

The MLP, in its education plan, was saying it would introduce a reception class before primary school. Did this mean that school-leaving age would rise to 17? What research had been carried out into this proposal? Had a study been made into how many additional teachers were required for this additional year?

The MLP plan spoke about raising per capita spending on education to reach that of non-state institutions, yet that level had already been surpassed.

It proposed incentives for adults to get basic skills. Such incentives already existed, and last year such courses were attended by close to 8,000 people. The MLP's plan therefore showed how Labour actually lacked vision and ideas.

Winding up, Education Minister Louis Galea thanked all those involved in the education sector.

He said that the highlights of his ministry's budget were:

• A record outlay of Lm126 million for education;

• The concurrent building of five new schools;

• Plans to replace all physics, chemistry, biology and technology labs in all schools at a cost of Lm1.5 million;

• Lm13 million allocated for church schools;

• Lm 19 million allocated for higher education;

• Lm9 million to be spent on stipends, including new stipends to students in private institutions;

• Lm200,000 for scholarships;

• Lm1.15 million on sports, including completion of the Kirkop sports complex;

• Lm5 million to the ETC.

Dr Galea said it was heartening that everybody was now speaking about the importance of education for growth. Indeed, the massive investment being made in education was already paying dividends. How else could one explain the strong increase in investment that Malta was enjoying?

Reacting to various points made by the opposition about IT in schools, Dr Galea said that rather than continuing to buy computers the government would start leasing them and replacing them every so often. In that way the hardware as well as software would remain up-to-date and more computers could be replaced with the same funds. The government was also continuing to seek teachers for IT or make arrangements with private institutions so as to meet all demand for courses at Mcast. If its plans were successful, the number of students at Mcast would go up from the current 4,000 to 6,200.

He said EU funds would be used to enlarge the Junior College and new computer labs and other labs would be installed there, at the university and Mcast. A masterplan for Mcast was being drawn up so that new construction would satisfy needs well into the future.

Dr Galea said he wanted to assure the opposition that assessment of the national curriculum was ongoing. Among the findings so far was that the curriculum had achieved universal ownership. It had been found that 80 per cent of the curriculum had been implemented and 20 per cent was in the process of being implemented, or else implementation was not satisfactory. This was a very good result. Two areas where much remained to be done were students' continuous assessment and a more coordinated approach to the teaching of science subjects.

In the case of the former, talks had been held with the MUT and headway was expected to be made soon. In the case of the latter there was disagreement between education officials and others from the Faculty of Sciences, but the matter was being tackled.

Dr Galea said the process of grouping schools into colleges would continue with the creation of four new colleges followed by three others. Nine months after the first colleges were set up, it was too early to make an evaluation of the progress made. Still, there were clear indications that heads of schools and teachers were increasingly confident of the success of the new system. Better management of the schools with better use of resources and experience was already becoming evident.

On Matsec, Dr Galea said that after several consultations it was expected that decisions would be taken soon.

The number of applicants for Sec O level exams had risen to 81.5 per cent, which was very good compared to other countries, despite what the leader of the opposition said.

In reply to questions by Mr Abela, Dr Galea said that eventually the space occupied by the Corradino Junior Lyceum would be used for Mcast. The new hall at Sta Lucija would be built, but the emphasis at present was on new school construction.

Dr Galea said 80 per cent of Labour's education plan was actually already being implemented by the present government, and it would have been far better had Labour joined in the government's consultation meetings if it truly believed there should be no politics in education.