Yesterday in Part I of my article I argued that the new Reform Agreement between the government and the MUT signed two months ago marks the culmination of a 13-year-long process that brought about a paradigm shift in educational vision and the enabling structures needed to bring about and manage the envisaged change in all aspects of compulsory education.
First attempts at implementation
Setting down a new educational vision is one thing; identifying the targets to fulfil that vision and tracing the way forward to reach those targets is a different order of challenge. In January 2000 a National Steering Committee chaired by Professor Kenneth Wain was set up to develop a strategic plan for the implementation of the new NMC.
The work of the National Steering Committee followed the now tried and tested method of wide-ranging public and stakeholder consultations. Meetings with 10,000 parents were held, as well as a series of TV and radio programmes, and meetings with educational and community and civil society leaders. The highlight of this process was a national conference in June 2000 for which hundreds of teachers and parents attended, and in which 18 reports were presented for discussion. This conference, which was characterised by a vigorous and wide-ranging debate, was the high-water mark of public participation and ownership of the educational transformation process that had begun in 1994. It affirmed the validity and acceptance of the new NMC, and set the standard for future public participation in educational change.
In March 2001 the National Steering Committee presented its Strategic Plan for the implementation of the New National Curriculum, which was later approved by the Cabinet. It provided for the setting up of a National Curriculum Council and 15 Focus Groups on specific themes. The Strategic Plan proposed a highly prescriptive three-phase plan with 124 specific targets setting out an agenda that was as comprehensive as it was ambitious.
The expectation in the Plan was that the National Curriculum Council (NCC) and its Groups would implement the prescribed remit. In reality, the NCC interpreted the Strategic Plan as a set of guidelines rather than instructions. The Focus Groups were not set up exactly as proposed by the Strategic Plan, nor did these groups feel themselves strictly bound by the Plan's agenda - in some cases they even went beyond the expected outputs of the Plan. Also, the NCC, which was meant to have a degree of autonomy from the Education establishment and whose Focus Groups were in effect doing curriculum-related work, was headed ex ufficio by the Director for Curriculum Management. Within the Education Division this director was also responsible for the work of the Education Officers, some of whom were members of the Focus Groups, and whose role included curriculum development. In retrospect, the potential for less than efficient and effective action was evident.
The intention was to create new energies and synergies within central educational management, so as to jump-start the reform of educational processes in classrooms and schools in fulfilment of the new National Curriculum. In doing so, the change dynamic resorted to was an "additive" one. This mirrored the setting up of other "external" entities such as the Literacy Unit, Let Me Learn (Malta) and the Foundation for Educational Services that were also intended to work alongside and support the Education Division. It was a bit like attaching a powerful outboard motor on the side of a boat with an internal engine. The overall effect of the creation of the NCC was that the boat did go faster and in the right direction, but sometimes it also went in circles.
Nevertheless, the NCC experience was a crucial one. It was the first time that the Education establishment was coming to grips with the nuts of bolts of the structures and processes needed to implement the bold educational vision of the new National Curriculum. It was a typical "new wine in old wineskins" situation; the Education Division had been designed for centralised administration, not to manage decentralised change. Nothing less than a paradigm shift in educational management, both at the macro and the micro levels, was required.
Implementation through decentralisation
By early 2003 Minister Louis Galea had probably become convinced that the necessary energies to bring the new National Curriculum to fruition had to be generated through a different change dynamic than the 'additive' one just described. The formula for this new vision was sketched in the 2003 Electoral Manifesto of the PN Party, and then in the President of Malta address on the opening of the new Parliament. In the aftermath of the general election, high-level discussions started to explore ways how state schools could be networked into a number of colleges with secondary schools and their feeder primary schools. In the summer of 2004, the first pilot networks were identified, but it soon became clear that lasting progress could not be made without an articulated plan for the transformation of both the centre and the periphery of the state educational system.
All this led in June 2005 to the publication by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Employment of For All Children to Succeed (FACTS) - A New Network Organisation for Quality Education in Malta. It was a revolutionary document that proposed the transformation of the Education Division into two complementary directorates: one with a regulatory and quality assurance role for all schools in Malta, and the second with a support services role mainly for state schools. All state primary and secondary schools would be networked into 10 autonomous colleges that could have a variety of transitional formats. However, they would all have the capacity to generate new energies through college-based curricular control and resources, and greater technical and administrative support. This new spirit of educational reform would also be coupled with the most massive school rebuilding programme in Maltese history, to equip school communities with state-of-the art facilities for holistic education and community-based learning.
With the publication of the proposed FACTS reform, the momentum of educational change picked up again. During this period 10 separate review exercises of different aspects of the educational provision, ranging from early childhood education and inclusion to higher and tertiary education and lifelong learning, were being completed. In September 2005 three pilot colleges were launched - Gozo, Cottonera and St Benedict's. In May 2006 the brand new St Benedict's College was officially inaugurated, to serve as a template for future secondary schools. This was followed in July 2006 with the passing of the new amendments to the Education Act, which included the establishment by law of the new directorates and the new colleges. In September 2006, another four colleges were launched.
The final piece of the jigsaw was a new education reform agreement, that would serve as the corner-stone of a new system of education in Malta and that would create the posts, flexibility, support and accountability necessary to give the new colleges wings. This became a reality two months ago, July 17, 2007.
Innovative aspects in the Reform Agreement
The process that brought about the Reform Agreement was itself innovative. The two sides did not start out, as is many times the case, with a wish-list by the union to improve the conditions of work of this or that category of employees. Both sides had a common objective - the creation of structures and conditions that would implement the June 2005 For All Children to Succeed proposed reforms, as then embodied in the July 2006 Amendments to the Education Act.
The Reform Agreement had to find ways how to persuade teachers that it was in students' and families' best interest, as well as being worth their while, to change current practices that in some cases went back long decades. It had to find ways how to balance the potential for new energies released through the granting of autonomy to the colleges, with the need to ensure that the teaching and learning remained to the highest standards. It needed to find ways how such measures of quality assurance and accountability would not stifle teachers, but guide and support all to do their best.
It did so brilliantly, to the credit of both sides of the negotiating table. The new Reform Agreement is built on four operant principles: Quality; support, flexibility, accountability.
In the third and final part of the article I will highlight the key innovations in the Reform Agreement.
Mr Spiteri is senior executive at the Foundation for Educational Services. The third and final part of his article will appear tomorrow.