'Fossilised' education system making students suffer

Over-burdened syllabi, over-zealous teachers, and excessively competitive parents all share part of the blame for the stress that our students are made to suffer. But most of all MUT president John Bencini blames the antiquated education system.

While our schools boast of five-star facilities "we have been talking about changes for the past 25 years, he said, "but we have progressed far too little. The system does not just need a change, it needs a complete metamorphosis", he said.

I was surprised to learn from Mr Bencini that Malta is the only country in Europe that still has the system of competitive examinations that separate the students who will go on to the junior lyceums and Church schools from those who will attend the area secondary schools and ex-opportunity centres.

"Northern Ireland will be abandoning a similar exam system next year. After then the only two countries in the world left clinging to the system will be Malta and Singapore," he said indignantly.

"Students feel traumatised when they are 'relegated' to the area secondaries. Some parents are even ashamed to let their neighbours see their children in the area schools' uniform."

"Why have we been so resistant to change?" I asked.

According to Mr Bencini the disastrous decision to abolish exams in state schools in the early 1970s has petrified all politicians from touching the system ever since. For example, in the late 1990s, when there was a suggestion to abolish the exam system there was uproar among parents.

It is this system that induces teachers to become over-zealous and parents to become over-competitive, he explained. Whenever he visits a school and enters one of the top performing students' classes, he finds that, invariably, the teachers are nervous wrecks. After welcoming him they often apologise for not being able to spend more time chatting - "hu pacenzja ahjar inkompli".

"I sometimes get parents knocking on the door of my house asking me why their child has to do homework from the time they finish school at 2.30 p.m. up until 11 p.m."

Teachers in Year 6 classes become over-zealous in dishing out homework because they feel under pressure to meet the expectations of parents of high achieving students. At the end of the year the parents compare how many of the teacher's students passed the Junior Lyceum exam.

And whenever a school takes such classes out for a cultural visit, a couple of parents will inevitably phone to complain that they are wasting the students' time.

"Our education culture is too exam-oriented. The parents of above-average students propagate this culture by influencing teachers to push their students harder. All the schools' energy is focused on passing on instruction, not providing holistic education for life. True, we have introduced the subject of PSD (Personal and Social Development), but that's about it. This is the main reason why students are suffering stress," insisted Mr Bencini.

I was shocked to learn from Mr Bencini that in Malta there are just two child psychologists for a total school population of 75,000. "So if a local head of school asks the Education Division for one of them to come visit their school, they might be able to come in two or three years' time!" he said sarcastically. Abroad, there is a child psychologist for every 4,000 students, he asserted.

Mr Bencini said that whenever he visits schools on the European mainland the atmosphere is relaxed - classes have an average of 14 to 16 students. By contrast Maltese 6A and 6B classes often cram in up to 30 students, he said. "And in Denmark, children start going to school at the age of six and seven, not at three or four, as in Malta, and yet they not only manage to catch up academically with Maltese students, but leave them way behind," he exclaimed.

I suggested to him that perhaps we need to get foreign education experts over, to help us jump-start the change. He agreed, adding that we should preferably get them from Nordic countries, not the UK, and pay them well to stay in Malta for several years.

"The current 'pilot project' of grouping junior lyceums, area secondary schools, and ex-'opportunity centres' into colleges was trying to blur the segregation of the achievers from the non-achievers without abolishing the examination system. It is a very expensive system. Many more teachers will need to be employed to maintain the system," he pointed out.

"I have asked teachers in these colleges what difference they have noticed since the 'colleges' were set up two years ago - the answer is none - there has been no change in the syllabus, no variation in the number of subjects taught, or the introduction of a different examination papers or grading according to the students' capabilities."

"When the National Minimum Curriculum document Inwelldu l-gejjieni was issued some eight years ago I had said that at long last, we are going to see a change in culture. Now, I realise that it was just an illusion. Almost nothing has changed! The document spoke about introducing diversity in education and examinations according to student aptitudes, instead we still have a 'one size fits all' approach. This promise has remained on paper.

"For example, according to the curriculum, Physics was not supposed to remain obligatory. A wider subject of Integrated Science should have replaced it. The debate on this subject is still going on. No one seems to have the courage to decide and implement the decision.

"In the primary education sector, pupils are being made to study too much. It is like we are stuck in the era of UK Grammar schools."

Mr Bencini explained that in secondary school there are two types of students - those who are above average, and those who are below average. The stress on those who are above average grows every day as their parents and teachers push them to perform at an ever-higher level, while those who are below average also become increasingly stressed out when they see themselves falling further behind, and as a result they become increasingly demotivated, as do their parents.

"It is so ironic," he said, "that at parents' days, the parents whose students do not really have any problems always turn up, while the parents of the students with the biggest problems are never seen."

He also brought out an organigram of the Education Department and pointed out that there are there 50 vacant Education Officer posts.

A frustrated Mr Bencini shot a volley of rhetorical questions at me: "Why are some students still coming out of the system illiterate? Why can't teachers stop trying to teach demotivated students all the subjects in the syllabus, including those subjects that they have no aptitude for? If a student excels in home economics why not allow flexibility to drop certain subjects to have more time to focus on this instead?"

He said even the much lauded inclusive education policy was causing additional stress to children with disabilities and their facilitators because it is inflexible.

"How can a child with the mental capabilities of a Form 2 student successfully complete exams for Form 6 students?" he asks. "There is no clear policy that empowers a head of school to decide that a student with a mental disability should not continue to attend certain classes. If a parent complains, the head has to allow the student to sit for all subjects," he explains.

Regarding private lessons Mr Bencini stated emphatically that the MUT is against pupils being sent to private lessons. "There is absolutely no need for it. It is preventing children from enjoying their youth and causing them stress."

Mr Bencini called for the setting up of a joint parliamentary committee with representatives of both sides of the House to agree on the changes necessary to the education system.

"Why should I receive separate papers on education from the MLP and the PN?, he asked rhetorically. The MLP is proposing the addition of an extra year after Kinder and before Year 1, meaning education would continue until the age of 17. "What are the implications of such a change?" he asked. "We need to solve all the other problems we have in the system before introducing such a change," he concluded.

Next week: Highlights from the MATSEC review and what some key authorities on education and child welfare have to say.