Fiona Galea Debono
Streaming could be phased out in three years
The government is proposing to phase out streaming in schools over two to three years but is open to feedback from experts, Education Minister Dolores Cristina said yesterday.
"I would rather leave it up to the experts to tell us," Ms Cristina said when asked about the proposals approved recently by Cabinet. "It is not something we are planning on doing in a hurry".
The streaming system, which sifts students according to academic achievement during the transition from primary to secondary, was caught in the crossfire with academics on one side claiming social justice and that it pigeonholes and burdens children with too much stress at an early age.
The consultative document, approved by Cabinet last week, proposes to phase out the system and to review the way exams are held, even though it does not contemplate removing the junior lyceum exams altogether, the minister said.
"The idea is for exams not to be the only benchmark. Assessments should be carried out along the way so we can be aware of the children's competencies from early on."
The consultative document recommends the phasing out of the streaming system because it is selective and exclusive - "the complete opposite of the concept of inclusive education".
Children should learn to mix with one another, Ms Cristina said. A classroom should have different competencies and skills, while the more vulnerable should be supported and a helping hand lent to the brighter pupils.
The document is being launched for public consultation next week, Ms Cristina said, pointing at the delay caused by the Budget next Monday.
"We are hoping it will bring in other ways and means of looking at the situation."
The bottom line of the exercise is to remove the stress on children, their parents, teachers and even the whole community, she continued.
The document highlights the difficulties caused by the stress families have to endure, Ms Cristina said, using as an example the many private lessons children attend from a young age, often preventing them from doing any extracurricular activities.
The phasing out of streaming would mean they would definitely need fewer private lessons, she said.
"Ideally, children should spend the day at school, go home, do any work that has to be done and grow up as children, enjoying themselves and having time for other activities.
"At the moment, the system is one of immense pressure on the children," she added.
The report was compiled by a working group appointed by former Education Minister Louis Galea to examine the situation and make recommendations.
The urgency of the overhaul of the education system was raised last month during a business breakfast on education, organised by the Nationalist Party, when Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi acknowledged the need for an in-depth look at streaming.
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a.mangion
Oct 31st 2008, 17:18
@Alex Borg
"streaming, a social injustice which does not take into account the different speeds with which children develop"
clearly Mr. Borg doesn't understand how streaming works. it is precisely because children develop at 'different speeds' that streaming should be maintained. It is anything but an injustice to group children of different abilities in the same class so that the teacher can cater for all of them without the danger of anyone falling behind. if the children are made to feel that they are failures because they are not in the higher streams it's up to us to convince them otherwise. I fear that this misconception was not developed by the children themselves but that it was imposed on them by grown ups, parents included. Parents make the mistake of comparing children according to the stream they are in whch is wrong. Athletes in a race do not run against the other competitors but against the clock. So it should be with students.
martin portelli
Oct 31st 2008, 09:24
One word on streaming and high achievers. Streaming in Malta has left the exceptional child discouraged by the wayside. What streaming caters for is a population of exam animals not exceptionality. Education and specifically Special education in Malta in particular has never had the creative vision nor the courage to cater for the educational needs of the gifted, these are treated as pariahs worse they are proclaimed inexistent. Mediocrity is a heavy burden for any country to carry, killing inspiration and wonder at kindergarten is the real national tragedy.
Alex Borg
Oct 31st 2008, 01:43
About time streaming was removed. I am sure Malta is the only European country with streaming, a social injustice which does not take into account the different speeds with which children develop. Now hopefully the next step will be to remove gender segregation from our schools, another thing of the past still lingering 30 years behind the rest of Europe.
Josephine Cassar
Oct 30th 2008, 20:17
Streaming was removed and disaster followed. Why must we always ry systems which have already failed? Even with streaming, you get mixed abilities in same class of 25-30 students. Before taking the decision by some who have either hardly ever spent time in clasrooms or are in offices, detached from the reality of a class,instead we should see why we are no longer getting Heads who can control schools; qualifications do not make a good Head. Prize days should not be given so much pomp as many lessons are lost. Too much emphasis is being laid on paperwork without any result. Teachers are not being supported in discipling pupils like before. It is like a free for all, so no wonder the Educational system fails. We are losing even those who would normally achieve if students are disciplined.
Randolph Peresso
Oct 30th 2008, 18:58
Perfectly agree with A. Mangion.
Some think that teachers are in favour of streaming to get an easier life. This is a MISCONCEPTION. Teachers are infavour of streaming beacuse we believe that it is of benefit to ALL students. In a mixed ability class it is nearly impossible to chalange the most talented students to improve to their full ability and help the students who still haven't mastered the basic principles!! Can someone enlighten me on how can I deliver a lesson in English in a year 6 class, in which 4 students are highly profecient in English, 14 are average and 5 do not understand simple English?? I have to either ignore those not understanding in english, and keep on delivering my lesson in english, or else keep on switching to Maltese, and therefore not challenge those who can understand english to understand in english.....this to mention one silly example!!!!! What about when coming to a comprehension text?????? Should I prepare 2 seperate texts???? ....Sure I could...but when I come to give out my lesson in class? what should I do? Use double the time? Isn't this a waste of ti
a.mangion
Oct 30th 2008, 17:52
The solution is not to eliminate streaming but to cater for different abilities. this can only be done by developing different syllabii according to specific capabilities. The concept of streaming is defeated when all the children have to face the same exam papers at the end of the year. furthermore, the idea that the only successful pupils are those who make it to university must be jettisoned. it is often remarked that when children are streamed children in the lower streams feel that they have already failed in life. In reality, could we be the ones who are passing on that idea by insisting that they make it to university at all costs? There are many kinds of 'successes in life besides getting a degree. let's explore these venues and watch for any hidden talents even among the most 'vulnerable' children.
a.mangion
Oct 30th 2008, 17:19
"A classroom should have different competencies and skills, while the more vulnerable should be supported and a helping hand lent to the brighter pupils."
This sentence just doesn't make sense in this particular context. how will the elimination of streaming bring this about?
"The bottom line of the exercise is to remove the stress on children, their parents, teachers and even the whole community,"
How will the elimination of streaming remove the stress on teachers unless the class population is reduced drastically?
"The phasing out of streaming would mean they would definitely need fewer private lessons,"
this sentence needs to be explained as I see no correlation between the removal of streaming and private lessons. in fact the reverse may be the truth as bright pupils will need to make up for the lost time in class de to the slow learners.
I hope that the decision is not taken before the persons(the real experts) facing the consequences are consulted and listened to. these are the class teachers who have to face the class every day and not the people behind some desk in some office in the clouds writing theories and pontificating on how a teacher should work
Charles Camilleri
Oct 30th 2008, 17:00
Streaming has been dropped during Labour Administration and it was a disaster with many educationalists at that time saying that our education system was pushed back by 10 yrs. Now we are having a go again. How many pupils are we going to ruin before we realise again the harm done. This will force more parents to make sacrifices to send their children to private schools. Then we will have the real discrimination with slow moving pupils attending public schools and fast moving ones attending private schools.
martin portelli
Oct 30th 2008, 14:32
Mixed ability teaching requires teachers to be competent at student profiling. Unless there is prior investment in human resource, this will not take off. E.g. for changes to be implemented in Cospicua primary school, teachers have to be comfortable with using the profiling tool otherwise no educational programme that best suits the student can be drawn. It would have been visionary indeed had those that compiled the report on streaming ensured beforehand that educators were already receiving training in student profiling. Teachers used to an exam-based system for assessment can’t be expected to become experts over night, they have not as yet received any training in profiling whatsoever not even at University. Their perception of a student’s ability is essentially the marks obtained in tests and exams from year 4 upwards. Prescriptive Level descriptors hardly function as adequate measures of a student’s ability they are too general. One hopes that a well thought out reform does take place. It would be worthwhile indeed if and we ackowledge at last that reform is most needed in early school education for Maltese children to succeed.
l Galea
Oct 30th 2008, 14:01
What is wrong with being competitive and sitting for examinations?
Are we going to have everyone promoted to the next class notwithstanding that they may have learned nothing during the year?
Simply promoting such students will not make them learn, but will hinder the progress of the other students.
If students cannot learn academic subjects, then they should be streamed into other areas not left learning absolutely nothing until they leave school without any education at all.
Furthermore, I do not agree that examinations are removed, but that they should not be the only criteria for assessing the pupils, e.g. assessment to include coursework, homework etc.
Without examinations and coursework assessment we will end up with useless and valueless school leaving certificates for if they are issued to everyone irrespective of any achievements no one will know what real value they represent.
mario mifsud
Oct 30th 2008, 13:10
@stephen spiteri
maybe the education dept should stop loosing time and resources in assessing teachers at their work and start doing something tangible on the misbehaviour of some students. the streaming process today is only directed at an academic level. Mixed levels of students does hinder teachers from doing their work effectively. If we eliminate streaming now without tackling misbehaviour than we sure gonna have a problem where disruptive students will hinder classmates at all schools and at all levels. First things first!
T. Briffa
Oct 30th 2008, 13:04
What worries me most is the stress on children and the rigid schooling we impose on them since the age of five - poor babies! If we're still going to have the junior lyceum exam, how is the stress going to be alleviated? And I'm afraid that, with the competitive mentality we have developed towards education, the continual assessments are going to be turned into continual torture for the kids. We need to slow them down, let them be rounded human beings with time for learning, playing, creating, appreciating, socialising, keeping fit etc. That's what I would like to hear from the Minister, that my child is going to learn a bit of everything at school and not just the academic.
M J Gatt
Oct 30th 2008, 12:48
Life (society) is what it is i.e. survival of the fittest. If streaming is abolished, the problem that is allegedly happening to students with low abilities will be postponed to the time, when they become of age to work. They find that the more gifted will fill up the best jobs. Schools are supposed to be a mirror of society. So if streaming is abolished, schools will not be reflecting the society the low achievers will find when they finish school. The more advanced students will suffer because of the slower pace lessons are delivered while the less gifted will suffer, perhaps because the lessons are too fast for them. Moreover the latter will either suffer from inferiority complex, seeing that they are weaker than the more gifted sitting next to them, or become disruptive to the detriment of all the class. The problem seems to be with students with low abilities. So tackle these students by putting them in classes with fewer students who can then benefit more from individual attention. This may be just ONE solution. Surely there are others. The abolishing of streaming is NOT one of them.
Stephen Spiteri
Oct 30th 2008, 12:32
The gentlemen below all have a point, but isn't the present system already sending out one message ? - It is telling an eight year old - YOU HAVE ALREADY FAILED, an albatross s/he keeps carrying round his / her neck all their life.
Yes, there is streaming in life, that's why one becomes a heart surgeon and another one a street sweeper. However, should we continue ignoring the ones who are left lagging ? Also, didn't it cross your mind that the street sweeper is there because the system has failed him ?
Allura, doesn't he have a right to be better educated, even if he's a sweeper ?
To the one who said that if you keep a horse with a donkey, only the horse will be slowed down, I feel you are not aware of the recent developments in education, with courses started this week, which I'm participating in, as a teacher, in helping teachers to deal with such situations.
Joseph A Borg
Oct 30th 2008, 12:31
@ Ramon Casha. i beg to differ. The primary aim of school, especially for kinder and primary should be to teach children to engage in a varied, semi-structured social environment. We have lost the plot. Six year olds shouldn't be cramming for exams but engaged to open up, make friends, do sport and arts, learn what property is and explore the world. School needs to replace the long lost tight-knit communities where children and adults occupied the same space.
Nowadays both parents work, they have to take care of grand-parents, and struggle with housework.
Streaming doesn't work, classes should be mixed on purpose to reflect society. If it's true that brain function develops differently in children, then streaming is a discrimination based on biological differences.
I agree though that troublesome children with troublesome parents should be packed up into special schools for the safety of the other teachers and pupils alike.
Streaming might have been necessary when school infrastructure was primitive. If government ensures student mobility in secondary education, depending on skills and aptitude, then streaming primary is counter productive.
Joseph Micallef
Oct 30th 2008, 11:54
I only suggest contributors to these comments to first check their facts first before talking in favour of streaming - something which is universally considered unjust and counter productive.
Paul Barrett
Oct 30th 2008, 11:38
For once I am in total agreement with all the comments shown (Ramon Casha downwards).
No teacher can be expected to adequately teach and control a mixed level class to the benefit of the all the students in it.
Not all children have the same ability to absorb information. If you mix the fast learners with the slow learners you will not speed up the slow learners but you will slow down the academically bright fast learners.
Additionally, mixing academically bright children in the same class as not so bright children will undoubtedly just make those less bright feel even more inadequate and disinterested in learning as they fall further and further behind.
Joseph Schembri
Oct 30th 2008, 11:12
@Mario Mifsud: I agree with the idea of special schools with 'military' discipline for troublesome students who don't allow teachers to carry out their jobs and prevent other students from learning.
What we need are not child protection agencies which tell children all about their 'rights' and label discipline as 'abuse'. The people at those agencies try to justify their salaries by finding cases of 'abuse' and giving us statistics about how many children have been emotionally, physically and sexually abused. We have gone to the extreme where it is called physical abuse if a teacher spanks a child and sexual abuse if she hugs him. You also have to be careful how you verbally correct minors nowadays because you can be accused of emotional abuse.
Those agencies should be on the side of all well meaning adults who want real good for their children. I don't mind if my childrens' teachers use well regulated discipline, even including corporal punishment when needed. I am afraid to say that I do so myself because I might have the child protection do gooders on me like a tonne of bricks.
Ramon Casha
Oct 30th 2008, 11:06
Why isn't the obvious choice being considered - to sack the "working group" and replace them with people who know what they're saying?
Not everyone has the same talents and abilities. Students NEED streaming - it benefits both the top achievers and those who need a slower pace through life. If you're going to dump everyone into the same box you're either going to run the class at the ideal speed for the most advanced students - which will leave the others entirely in the dust - or teach everybody at the rate of the slowest students - which cripples those who could move faster.
The biggest problem with streaming is that it is only done once instead of as a continuous process.
The removal of streaming will bring everyone's education level down to the level of the lowest achiever. Ultimately, all students will suffer.
Joseph Schembri
Oct 30th 2008, 10:44
For the sake of our children and the future of our country please remember the old adage: 'If it ain't broke don't fix it!'
When will the government listen to the real experts on this issue: the Teachers, and stop paying heed to people like Kenneth Wain who preach out from their ivory towers and have not been near a real life classroom for decades.
The simple truth is that the structure of society itself is based on meritocracy and 'streaming' by ability. That is why we have people who are heart surgeons and others who are road sweepers. As much as it is distasteful for some to admit it - that is the way the real world ought to be and there is nothing wrong if our educational system reflects the real world. It was only the communists who dreamed of a world where you'd have a man who was a brain surgeon in the morning, a gardener in the afternoon and a steel worker in the evening.
Don't repeat the mistakes of the 70s carried out by the socialists, then it was egalitarian principles, now the excuse is political correctness
Mario Mifsud
Oct 30th 2008, 10:43
First we must tackle misbehaviour seriously. Nothing has been done on this problem. In certain secondary schools doing a lesson is impossible with certain classes due to delinquent behaviour. The teachers cannot work and deliver their lessons in these conditions to the detriment of students who are yes slow learners but willing to learn as well. Streaming should only be done not on an academic level but also on behaviour. Students who do not want to learn, abuse their teachers, willfully oppose every authority should not be placed in a school but in an institute with a military running. The situation has been neglected for far too long. Any one who works in a Sec school knows what I am talking about.
Charles Sammut
Oct 30th 2008, 10:37
"The phasing out of streaming would mean they would definitely need fewer private lessons, she said."
Now that is warped logic for you! How dis Ms Cristina arrive at this conclusion? That is simply a politically convenient statement and one which is detached from reality.
In fact the opposite will be true. If you mix students of wildly differing abilities the result will be that the lesser able will drag down those who are more able or more willing. It will boil down to the lowest common denominator. That's a basic socialist tenet.
So the more willing and able students will invariably have to resort to private lessons to make up for wasted time in class.
The key word in Ms Cristina's statement is "definitively". She is morally convinced! I find this very distressful. Her intententions are undoubtedly good, but we know which road is paved with good intentions.
Simon Swartz
Oct 30th 2008, 10:07
I totally disagree with removing streaming from schools.
Put a horse with a donkey, the donkey will not become a horse but the horse will become a donkey.
It could be all the way round but how do you expect to get children to learn if a lesson is repeated over and over because there are students who do not understand.
Who has a fast car should move on to the surpassing lane to develop his abilities faster, whilst the ones with a slow car should move onto the left lane to let others pass by the time they get a fast car.
Charles Sammut
Oct 30th 2008, 09:49
"A classroom should have different competencies and skills, while the more vulnerable should be supported and a helping hand lent to the brighter pupils."
I just cannot believe that this sort of statement is coming from the person responsible for education. "Vulnerable" in this context means "disruptive". It is like saying that if you put your head in a hot oven, then to compensate you should stick your feet in a bucket of ice and you will be OK.
I don't see serious private schools going this way. The result will be that more parents will bend over backwards to get their children out of public schools, whatever it may cost.
The important thing is that it sounds like "social justice" and that it is the politically correct thing to do. Ironically, it is now patently obvious that political correctness is destroying our society and culture.