The primary years of education of our children, culminating in their transition to secondary school, should be all about nurturing and fostering a deep love, rather than fear, of learning. This is the fundamental message I believe Education Minister Dolores Cristina projected last Tuesday as she unveiled the continuation of the education reform through a transformation of the primary to secondary schooling landscape.

Three factors have always struck me in the way the upper primary years of schooling develop.

The first is the fact that students are streamed from Year 4 onwards.

Secondly, students are streamed solely according to the results achieved in their end-of-year examinations. This means that if students find it difficult to express themselves in such a formal format they will find themselves placed within what is generally viewed as an inferior category or level of students.

At the end of Year 6, students sit for a harsh set of examinations, referred to (un)affectionately as the 11+ examinations. If they pass they will find themselves accepted within the state-run junior lyceums. Failure will lead them to area secondary schools.

Streaming bears negative connotations for such a delicate phase of education. It implies that children must constantly push themselves to make the grade; that if they slip in one simple end-of-year examination they will be lumped with a completely different group of students from the one they were with in the previous year. Slipping from a B to a C class or its equivalent also raises alarm bells for parents.

The fact that students will not longer be streamed from one grade to the next is therefore a very positive development. Children can now move from Grade 4 to Grade 6 without the constant fear that they will be detached from their set of classmates. It will also serve to develop a less stressful and competitive environment for children and parents alike.

Naturally, the elimination of streaming will have to be coupled with a boost in resources and support for teachers, both through hardware and software as well as through any training that may be required. Teachers will find it much more challenging to cater for classrooms with mixed abilities (in the traditional sense of the word) rather than streamed classrooms.

Parents are worried about the notion of children with mixed abilities sharing the same classroom. Why does the "intelligent" student have to find himself held up so that everyone else can catch up with him?

And how will the "less intelligent" student manage to cope with a classroom of Einsteins?

Fortunately, research shows that the contrary is true. While streaming is essentially the division of students into different classes according to the grade achieved in the subjects they are examined in, a new system of "setting" will allow students to be grouped by ability in the core subjects while remaining with the rest of their class in the other subject areas. Take Mark, for example, a model student who attains an average B grade in all subjects except English, where he gets a D. Setting will allow Mark to continue studying in the same classroom with his classmates but also allows educators to focus special attention on honing his English skills.

Studies also point to the fact that mixed-ability classes actually facilitate the creation of a learning environment. Students who understand the topic being discussed immediately will be able to turn onto those who are finding it difficult to catch up and, by repeating what they have absorbed in their own words, move one step further from simply discerning the subject matter. On the other hand, students who have trouble absorbing the topic being discussed will be able to gain the same lesson from their peers' understanding in a language they may recognise better.

And if these two factors haven't served to convince the concerned parent that children will fare better without streaming, simply consider the fact that when you send your child to private lessons, he or she is not "streamed" into a lesson slot. Yes, private lessons are conducted in mixed-ability classrooms!

Removing streaming will raise the quality of the education provided to our children; it will allow all students the possibility to reach their full potential.

Mr Casa is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.

david@davidcasa.eu, www.davidcasa.eu

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