Opposition calls for broad debate on primary schools

The Opposition spokesman on education warned today that the government would be making a serious mistake if it restricted the public discussion on primary education to streaming and Junior Lyceum exams.

Evarist Bartolo in a statement said much had to be done at kindergarten and primary school levels for schoolchildren to succeed.

At present, half of the pupils in state primary schools were falling back. A total of 3,029 pupils could have sat for the last Junior Lyceum yet only 1,531 had passed.

In Malta and Gozo there were 752 classes. There was no streaming in 505 of them. It would therefore be a mistake to only discuss the situation in a third of the classrooms. It made no sense for the government to think that the situation in primary education would improve just by removing streaming from a third of the classrooms.

What this country needed was a sincere and broad debate on primary education which would also include the issue of what the teachers and headmasters needed.